Features

A people’s university and a national crisis

Published

3 years ago

2023/07/4

By Shamala Kumar

I began thinking about this article when the Kuppi Collective began studying the government’s plans to enact labour reforms. We had initiated discussions with others, including academics, to understand the situation and quickly realised the highly controversial nature of these reforms and their potentially serious repercussions. Yet, hardly any debate regarding these reforms seemed to emanate from within universities.

Considering the potentially grave implications of the proposals, the silence raises questions about whether universities are adequately fulfilling their role as institutions integral to our democratic system. In this article, I explore why universities seem disengaged in critical debates, and analyse how changes in education policy and the neoliberal character of the present moment contribute to further disengagement from our role as active agents in democratic processes.

Contrary to what one might expect, Sri Lanka’s public universities and university teachers’ job roles do support public engagement. Many who discuss higher education reforms seem unaware of the emphasis given in our promotion schemes and work norms for engaging in “national development” activities. This is quite different from the job description of an academic who works in a high-ranking university in a global north setting where the primary focus is on securing funding and publishing in high impact journals.

This is also different from the expectations of those working in local non-state higher educational institutions where teaching is emphasized. Furthermore, most university academics in Sri Lanka maintain ties with national and international bodies aligned with their areas of expertise and serve the public as experts in their respective fields. Thus, the lack of engagement in such dialogue is not because of a lack of space for engagement beyond the confines of universities or because of a lack interest on the part of academics.

Challenging structures of power

The problem seems to lie in the types of engagement that occupy university teachers. As others, such as Noam Chomsky and Cornell West have observed, academics can work to consolidate existing systems of power, or can confront, question, and challenge them. In Sri Lanka, this means that our work may support the prevailing authoritarian regime and antidemocratic system; we may uphold neoliberal ideological positions that serve the class interests of the elite.

Alternatively, we could align ourselves with the marginalized majority that constitute our country and world. The former brings with it State support and political patronage, while the latter can be unpopular, leaving us vulnerable and open to attack. Perhaps this partly explains the lack of discussion on issues like labour reform and the rather tenuous alignment of our work, more generally, with the concerns of those who are systematically marginalized and excluded in economic and political structures of this country.

But university teachers hold positions of privilege with substantial space to speak. These freedoms are unique, particularly in the repressive environment of the present moment. Spaces for public discourse, especially when critical of the State, are rapidly shrinking. Most recently, Natasha Edirisooriya’s arrest drastically diminished the space to use comedy to spotlight the absurdities of our political class, and the arrest of Bruno Dinakara, critical vlogger, reduced freedoms within social media spaces – freedoms that had been curtailed during the previous President’s tenure, or even earlier. These arrests have occurred within a context of increasing repression against any form of public protest or even gathering. University teachers’ positions, in contrast, have protections that give us the space to speak.

We also have privileged access to information with which we can question problematic ideological positions, potential hidden intentions and misrepresentations that drive government actions, and provide the historical and global context in which these actions occur. In Sri Lanka, as an integral element of our policy on free education, we are awarded some independence from the interests of capital as well.

Unlike in many universities elsewhere, our work is not contingent on self-funding through grants and fees. As a result, our ‘accountability’ to funding agencies and private capital is relatively lesser. Instead, our universities operate through public funds raised through the collective labour of the people. Thus, our lack of critical engagement in public policy and our unwillingness to support and augment voices on the margins, is deeply troubling.

Silencing through education reforms

Reforms to education policy are also in the offing, which will likely make our silence even more tangible in the future. We can guess the direction the reforms are likely to take, based on the trajectory of changes that have occurred in university administration and function in recent times. These changes to how universities operate have done little to strengthen the ties between universities and the politically weakest segments of the country.

For instance, the emphasis placed on publication statistics by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to gauge research performance rewards scholarship of global relevance over work that engages with local problems. High impact journals, those that determine “hot topics” in research, are likely to accept articles that address these global rather than local concerns.

Furthermore, as (the already miniscule) public allocations for research contract, university teachers may need to align their research with the interests and ideologies of funding agencies, at the expense of work that address locally specific concerns. The space to carry out research that challenges such institutions and their concerns and ideologies may also contract over time.

With respect to teaching, universities, steered by the UGC, are placing greater weight on technical skills, both in the content of existing courses and in new degree programmes. These changes in content come with a cost as the emphasis on technical solutions, de-emphasizes understanding the ideologies and historical contexts which have produced and sustained the roots of problems.

For instance, students in agriculture may be tasked with finding ‘solutions’ to the cost of importing fertiliser but the curriculum may not address the ideological and historical causes for this dependence on imported and costly fertiliser in the first place. Such technically-oriented curricula may train students to formulate technical solutions that align with government policies, but may not help them to think critically about the ideological framing and roots of the issues involved.

These are not trends that are specific to Sri Lanka. Globally, standardized curricula as a marker of “quality” through costly local or international certification bodies have gained popularity. Standardisation further alienates people from education because standardized curricula are based on global benchmarks, for the most part, and leave little room for teaching and learning that is responsive to the present moment. This was evident during the pandemic, when we continued to teach the same content while the world, as we knew it, was falling apart. The proposed educational reforms are likely to cut public funds for higher education, making access to higher education conditional on whether a student can access funds for it. These changes will be justified as necessary because of the prevailing crisis situation.

Crisis, however, is a feature, rather than the exception of a system driven by global capital and weak government. In crisis, there is urgency requiring immediate responses accompanied by attacks on any depth of analysis, on contextualizing and “theorizing” – they are viewed as needlessly “complicating” matters, impractical and even dangerous. For instance, any analysis critical of the government’s negotiations with the IMF have been attacked as futile and rejected. Problems within crises are, instead, narrowly framed, devoid of a critique of their ideological foundations. This, however, is not the way we at universities must confront issues, as such simplistic framings can neglect those rendered marginalized and silent.

Within this ethos, how can we claim spaces in universities for public engagement on critical issues, such as labour reform, particularly aligning ourselves consciously with those who have the least voice within systems? How can we guard against educational reforms that further disengage us and how might we challenge larger national and global trends that distract or intimidate us into complacency? Perhaps, first we must be conscious of our function in expanding democratic spaces. We must deliberately create spaces for the public in universities.

Last Saturday’s Open day at Peradeniya seems a step in the right direction. The university can transform into a public space, open and welcoming to the public, always and not just on “open” days. Further, we must create dialogue in universities and elsewhere which provoke us to speak out when changes in policy or university administration affect our capacity to call out governments whose actions are not in the best interest of the people. To this end, let’s begin by framing the proposed debt restructuring, the most recent attack on working people, within the historical context of the bond scam, which resulted in an immense loss of public funds that are yet unaccounted for, and deliberate on how we can arrive at socially just solutions to debt restructuring such as the wealth tax, which remains elusive and off the table.

(Shamala Kumar teaches at the University of Peradeniya)
Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.

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Features

US’ anti-migrant stance set to intensify tensions in Western camp

Published

2 hours ago

2026/06/11

Sahan Weerasooriya

Migrant boats land on Western beaches. Credit: PA

The announcement by the US authorities of an anti-migrant stance during a recent commemoration in France of the epochal D-Day Landings of June 6, 1944, ought to strike impartial observers as a supreme irony. Whereas what should have been expected was a vibrant celebration of the beginning of the process of Western Europe freeing itself decisively from Nazi or fascist control during the crucial stages of World War Two, this was not to be.

What the world heard instead was a call to contemporary Western Europe to arm itself against a seemingly rising and threatening migrant presence in the region. In other words, the migrant must be despised and ‘shown the door’.

Instead of a commemoration that rejoiced in the flourishing of liberal democracy and its values what one got was a strong affirmation of fascism and racial chauvinism. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vented his spleen against the migrant or foreigner presence in Europe reportedly thus: ‘Sadly today different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies.’ To ‘beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion?’

While at the outbreak of World War Two it was Nazi Germany that was doing the invading and bringing some principal European countries under its suzerainty, this time around we are being given to understand that it’s migrants to the West who are seeking to colonize the latter. It goes without saying that such inflammatory rhetoric would have the deleterious effect of keeping racial tensions alive in the West and jeopardize all possibilities of the countries concerned cementing and maintaining social stability.

The Trump administration gives the impression of taking a leaf from the politically underdeveloped regions of the South to keep the US polity stable and united. In South Asia, for instance, we are not short of ambitious demagogues who use what is referred to as the ‘race card’ to gather unto themselves a following and thereby further their political fortunes. By seeking to stir and sustain anti-migrant hysteria, the Trump administration is also essentially replicating Nazi Germany’s policy of anti-Semitism. That is, fascism is very much alive in the US under President Trump.

Such efforts at churning racial hysteria at this juncture in the US should not come as a surprise. For all intents and purposes, the Trump administration is nowhere near achieving its aims in West Asia, for instance, in the short term. It has failed to bring Iran down to its knees, as it hoped to do, but is adopting the expedient of keeping the world guessing and confused on what it is doing in the region, since it cannot withdraw from the theatre in a hurry without losing face.

While perhaps working out an escape strategy the Trump administration it seems, is hoping to maintain its following at home intact and silent by playing on their racial biases and insecurities. Hence, the anti-foreigner campaign.

Simultaneously, the Trump administration will need to keep a close eye on how economic pressures on the domestic front are panning out. Anti-administration sentiments first break to the surface at meal tables. On this score, the news cannot be good because the average US family’s spending power ought to be shrinking on account of rising energy and oil prices. Consequently, it would not be a bad idea to keep the attention of the US consumer diverted by adeptly playing ‘the race card’; once again, lessons from intellectually bankrupt Southern politicians are coming in handy.

To be sure such comparisons many politicians in vibrantly democratic countries would find quite unflattering. But the stark truth is that racism cannot be tolerated in civilized societies and those politicians who resort to it risk being branded as racists of the first degree. In fact they could be seen as being on par with the likes of German dictator Adolph Hitler and his close collaborators.

However, on the question of migrant policy the Trump administration would likely be at polar opposites with the most vibrant of liberal democracies of the West. This will be the case with the UK, France and Italy for instance. The latter continue to keep their doors open to legal migrants and they are likely to view a virtual blanket ban on migrants as reprehensible.

Moreover, in the foremost democracies of the West debates are vibrantly ongoing on the need to keep racism or any hint of it completely outlawed in the public plane. There is the case of the UK, for instance, where the authorities continue to emphatically pinpoint their adherence to the principle of anti-racism in the conduct of public affairs.

One proof of the above was the parliamentary debate relating to the killing of 18-year-old Henry Nowak in Southampton. Police handling of the victim came in for sharp scrutiny by particularly the opposition in the House of Commons but there seemed to be a consensus over the main political divide that the matter should not be politicized.

Moreover, the UK authorities stressed in the House the government’s strict adherence to the policy of non-racism. It was also pointed out that British institutions set up to manage racism at the national, county and neighbourhood levels, for example, were very much intact. In fact, Sri Lanka could gain considerably by studying and implementing locally, legislation modeled on the relevant UK laws if it is in earnest when it speaks of ‘reconciliation’.

Accordingly, it is highly unlikely that Western Europe would ‘cave in’, so to speak, to US pressure on issues related to migration. The liberal democracies of Western Europe in particular would remain for the foreseeable future migrant-welcoming, multi-ethnic and plural democracies.

Nor is it likely that Western Europe would be passively receptive to US demands that it drastically increases its defense spending to meet the latter’s demands. Within the Western fold the EU is remaining committed to backing Ukraine, for instance, in its ongoing armed resistance to the Russian invasion and it is not giving any indication of being deferent to US pressure.

However, although tensions would continue to bristle within US-Western Europe relations on the above and numerous other matters of contention it would be far too premature to announce a parting of company between the two sections of the West. In that sense, the post-World War Two order remains essentially intact. There are still many things in common between the two, particular on the economic plane, that will ensure the continuance of the partnership.

Features

A decade among Yala’s ghosts of gold

Published

2 hours ago

2026/06/11

Sahan Weerasooriya

YM75 "James" surveys his territory from a tree-top vantage point, demonstrating the leopard's commanding presence in the landscape.

The first rays of dawn creep over the ancient rocks of Yala. The Indian Ocean glimmers in the distance, and the wilderness slowly awakens. Somewhere amid the scrub jungle, a pair of amber eyes scans the landscape.

For wildlife conservationist and leopard researcher Milinda Wattegedara, moments such as these have defined more than a decade of dedication to one of Sri Lanka’s most iconic creatures—the Sri Lankan leopard.

What began as fascination evolved into a remarkable conservation journey that has transformed the understanding of Yala’s leopard population and placed Sri Lanka firmly on the global wildlife research map.

“Long before I ever lifted a camera, leopards had already captured my imagination,” says Wattegedara. “What fascinated me was not merely their beauty but the complexity of their lives—their hunting strategies, movements, reproductive behaviour and their remarkable ability to adapt to changing environments.”

That fascination led to the birth of the Yala Leopard Diary in 2013, an ambitious long-term project dedicated to documenting individual leopards and unraveling the mysteries surrounding their lives.

For many visitors, a leopard sighting is a fleeting thrill. For Wattegedara and his team, every encounter is a chapter in an ongoing scientific story.

“Each photograph was never the end of an encounter,” he explains. “It was the beginning of deeper questions. How did a particular leopard use the landscape? How did its behaviour change with the seasons? What environmental pressures shaped its decisions?”

These questions drove years of meticulous fieldwork. Every sighting was carefully recorded with details including location, habitat, behaviour, date and time. Photographs were analysed to identify individual animals through unique spot patterns, allowing researchers to distinguish one leopard from another with remarkable accuracy.

What followed was groundbreaking.

YF77 “Shelly” pauses in quiet observation, embodying the alertness
and grace that define Yala’s leopard population.

From 2013 to 2026, the Yala Leopard Diary identified an astonishing 189 individual leopards within the Yala Block 1. The research revealed a leopard density of approximately 0.524 leopards per square kilometre, making Yala one of the highest leopard-density landscapes ever recorded anywhere in the world.

Such findings have elevated Yala’s status among global wildlife researchers.

Nestled between the Indian Ocean and a mosaic of habitats, ranging from rocky outcrops to dense scrub forests, Yala offers an ecological stage unlike any other.

Here, leopards are photographed silhouetted against ocean horizons, perched atop ancient granite formations, resting on tree branches and stalking prey across sunlit grasslands.

The images tell stories of extraordinary lives.

There is Haminee, a devoted mother navigating the challenges of raising cubs in a competitive landscape. There is Lucas, one of Yala’s most frequently documented males, striding confidently across the Gonalabba Plains with the vast ocean forming an unforgettable backdrop.

There is Ruki demonstrating the species’ incredible strength by hoisting prey onto branches, and Shelly, quietly surveying her surroundings in a moment of feline vigilance.

Together, these individuals have become familiar characters in a living wilderness drama.

YM31 “Ruki” secures prey on a branch, illustrating the remarkable strength and coordination of the Sri Lankan leopard.

Recognising the immense value of long-term documentation, Wattegedara joined forces with fellow researchers Dushyantha Silva, Raveendra Siriwardana and Mevan Piyasena to establish the Yala Leopard Centre in 2020.

Located at the Palatupana entrance to the Yala National Park, the centre is believed to be the world’s first information facility dedicated exclusively to leopards.

“The centre serves as a repository of knowledge, accumulated through years of observation and research,” Wattegedara says. “Our goal is to connect visitors with the science behind conservation and foster a deeper appreciation of these magnificent animals.”

The project’s impact extends far beyond Sri Lanka’s borders.

Research arising from the Yala Leopard Diary has been published in internationally recognised scientific journals. One study introduced an innovative framework for identifying individual leopards, while another documented an extraordinary and previously unrecorded case of a leopard cub being consecutively adopted by two different adult females—first a relative and later an unrelated leopardess.

The discovery attracted international scientific attention and highlighted the complexity of leopard social behaviour.

Yet for Wattegedara, the most important lesson remains one of humility.

“One conclusion has become increasingly clear,” he reflects. “Our understanding of these leopards remains far from complete. We are only beginning to understand how they live, adapt and persist in one of Sri Lanka’s most dynamic protected landscapes.”

YF15 “Hope” descends Rukvila Rock at dawn, showcasing the agility and adaptability of Yala’s leopards.

His words underscore an essential conservation truth: the more we learn about nature, the more mysteries emerge.

As Sri Lanka navigates growing environmental challenges, the Yala Leopard Diary stands as a shining example of what sustained observation, scientific curiosity and public engagement can achieve.

Beyond the stunning photographs and remarkable sightings lies something even more valuable—a growing body of knowledge capable of informing future conservation decisions and ensuring that future generations inherit a wilderness where leopards continue to roam free.

For more than a decade, Wattegedara and his colleagues have followed the tracks of Yala’s elusive predators through dust, rain and scorching heat.

Their work has revealed that every leopard has a story, every sighting has significance and every photograph can contribute to conservation.

And perhaps, most importantly, it has reminded us that the golden ghosts of Yala still have many secrets left to share.

By Ifham Nizam

Features

Glamour, music and community spirit …

Published

2 hours ago

2026/06/11

Sahan Weerasooriya

Sri Lankans are quite active, all around the globe.

News has just come my way, from Glasgow, in Scotland, where the glamour of masks, music, dancing, and community spirit, came together, in spectacular fashion, at Masquerade Night, bringing together members of the Sri Lankan community for an evening filled with music, fashion, food and entertainment.

Organised by Mahesh Balaaratchi (DJ Mowgli) together with Sulochana Asmone, Hiroshini, Prasad, Ashi, and Shawn, the evening provided guests with an opportunity to socialise, enjoy live entertainment, and celebrate in a unique and elegant setting.

Guests arrived from 6:00 pm, dressed in formal attire and decorative masks, creating a colourful and vibrant atmosphere throughout the venue.

DJ Mowgli: The main
organiser of
Masquerade Night

There was a delicious selection of Sri Lankan cuisine and street food, which proved popular throughout the evening.

The buffet offered a variety of traditional favourites, giving attendees a taste of home while adding to the festive atmosphere.

Entertainment was provided by DJ Mowgli, whose performance kept the audience engaged throughout the night. His playlist featured a mixture of popular favourites, dance classics, and cultural music, remixed for a younger generation.

One of the highlights of the evening was the Baila session, which brought a distinctly Sri Lankan flavour to the event.

The Baila segment highlighted the importance of preserving and celebrating cultural traditions, while bringing people together through music and dance.

As familiar rhythms filled the room, guests enthusiastically took to the dance floor, creating one of the most memorable moments of the night.

The crowd was described as lively, energetic, and welcoming, with attendees embracing the spirit of the masquerade theme while enjoying the opportunity to reconnect with friends and meet new people. The family-friendly atmosphere ensured that guests of all ages could take part in the celebrations.