A state-consented neo-caste system

by Lokubanda Tillakaratne
(First part of this article appeared in The Island yesterday (20 Jan.)

Some Thoughts as Solutions

Village school students do not seek to master the Bernoulli equations to fly jetliners. They want a head-start on their educational opportunities. Vigorous English learning opportunities and other available instructional tools to National and IS will help.

Therefore, to alleviate Other Schools’ English Language instruction anaemia and augment their instructional environment, I suggest forming a volunteer corps of retired government servants/teachers near those schools who would take a few hours daily to conduct English learning activities in at least lower-level classes. Metaphorically speaking, we don’t need a Julliard-trained teacher to teach reading, listening, and writing simple sentences for 1st and 2nd graders. An example would be a retired corps of engineers, technical officers, or teachers.  Such opportunities will instill motivation and hope in those students.

Secondly, encouraging IS to loan their students and teachers during holidays for reading and writing sessions in a village school and earn credits or recognition, ambrosia for university admissions, or advancement. Employers love such individuals in their workforce, and foreign universities love having those students represent their student body.

To invigorate and stimulate rural school teaching and its learning capital, I suggest short-term teacher rotation among schools, particularly between National-class and non-national-class schools. Such ‘inter-caste’ activities—a teacher from a city school visiting a rural school—will no doubt introduce different teaching and learning cultures, particularly in the small school, and it will reawaken both parties. The government can support this idea by recognising and incorporating such visits into promotion or compensation opportunities. Thousands of research scholars visiting academic institutions between the U.S. and other countries attests to the value of such exchanges.

Teachers commuting to rural schools is an issue. For my brother, a special education teacher, now retired, in Netiyagama school above Mahakanadarawa tank, multiplying herds of elephants breakfasting on the road to school was a headache and diminished his enthusiasm.  I, too, experienced disruption caused by the difficulty of retaining good teachers in my rural school.  The government must address this shame soon.

I remember having no English storybooks to read and no one at home capable of conversing; I spoke to trees in my father’s hena to practise English.  I am glad those trees could not talk back hearing my gibberish.  My English teacher in the 1960s came from Horana, those days a light-year away from my village. He had had enough after a few bouts of malaria in the first two terms. Then he got a job as Grama Sevaka – the new title that replaced Arachchirala – and sailed back home, leaving us cold.

Even 60 years later, education and its support structure in National and Provincial schools have been stuck on two parallel orbits of duality.    The terse and indifferent answer from the President’s office to my call mentioned earlier and the nature of the 2 million unfulfilled request for the 20×20 pavilion and the 24 million swimming pool with blue waters show the two-tier ‘low-caste’ and ‘high-caste’ school ambiance we have been relegated to.

National School concept questioned

The instances of disparate and inconsistent educational support to schools across the board are grounds to re-examine the National School Concept.  Inaction by successive governments and education authorities to educate kids on an even playing field has allowed this absurdity to continue.  In 2008, the National Committee for Formulating a New Education Act for General Education saw this damaging incongruity and reported, “blatant disparity continues making the policy of equal education opportunity a travesty,” and proposed abolishing the National School system.  It further noted the non-existence of a ‘rational basis for allocation and distribution of resources to schools.’ However, the travesty continues unabated, and in 2023, the National Education Policy Framework, a Cabinet Committee, found problems with the National School idea and recommended its abolition.

An Urban-Rural Anecdote

Finally, like the familiar trope ‘which school you went to,’ we hear to set the table for a conversation, the following anecdote sums up the psyche of the Urban-Rural school caste divide I tried to explain.

Once, while visiting New York, I met a Sri Lankan who had brought his brother starting school in an university in New Jersey. The brother asked me where I came from.

I replied, “Mihintale,” located 220km north of Colombo.

Then he quipped, “Isn’t that far –

හරි ‍දුරයි නේද?”

I nodded, hiding my smirk. After chatting for some time, I casually asked, “Where did you come from?”

“Kirindiwela,” he replied.

Kirindiwela is a nondescript community closer than Mihintale is to Colombo.

His reply was not uncommon.  He was unaware that his distance calculus was stuck in a Colombo-centrist milometer.  His fringed and urbanised thinking denied him the ability to reckon that for two Sri Lankans meeting in New York, the distance difference between Mihintale/New York and Kirindiwela/New York is negligible and of the same order of magnitude!

Writer is the author of Ratasabhawa of Nuwarakalaviya: Judicature in a Princely Province. An Ethnographical and Historical Reading (2023), and Echoes of the Millstone (2015),

by Geewananda Gunawardana, Ph.D.

In his excellent article on “Poor-quality and counterfeit medicines and unnecessary drugs” (The Island 06 January, 2025), Professor Saman Gunatilake wrote, “However, in our country what are assumed to be herbal products and Ayurveda products do not need to go through these stringent checks. As a result, they are in the market and advertised in newspapers and electronic media, these products, misleading the public. It is also of concern that even universities of ours are marketing drugs of no proven clinical value using this loophole in the regulatory process.” There is no doubt that this may touch a raw nerve in some circles. No matter what is said, Ayurvedic practice is part of Sri Lankan culture and estimated 60 to 70 percent of the population, mostly rural, depend on it for their primary healthcare needs. We deserve to know the truth.

Professor Gunatilake brought up an excellent point: not only in Sri Lanka, but in many other Western countries, herbal products do not go through the stringent approval process required for pharmaceuticals. However, the difference is that in those countries it is illegal to make any health claims unless they are proven clinically per the requirements of the regulatory agencies. Even then, there is a loophole that the purveyors of such products use liberally: they use verbal gymnastics. They state, usually in smaller print, that the products have been used in traditional medical practices for thousands of years, but they have not been approved by the regulatory agency. With that disclaimer, they market the products, not as drugs, but as dietary supplements or nutraceuticals at a fraction of the cost of approved drugs.

The obvious first question is if they are in that high demand, why do they not get regulatory agency approval? They have been trying for several decades; and every time, they have failed. They do not meet the requirements for regulatory agencies’ approval. Period. But wait, do not rush to throw away that herbal concoction and blame the good old village Ayurvedic practitioner that had been a cornerstone of our culture. Do not give up if you are aspiring to be one either. There is more to it, and the truth is a lot more complicated than it appears. There is a clash of paradigms. This writer has spent his entire career on both sides of this divide and has many stories to share.

The use of herbal preparations, as medicines, goes back thousands of years. The Ebers Papyrus, dating back to 1550 BCE, records the use of hundreds of herbal preparations for numerous ailments in ancient Egypt. Ayurveda can be older than that even though no written documents exist as proof. Greek physicians, such as Hippocrates (460 – 375 BCE) and Galen (129- 216 CE), have left written records of herbal recipes. This practice has continued in many cultures to date by way of handing down the information through generation.

Dawn of scientific revolution

With the dawn of scientific revolution, and the reductionist approach that ensued, scientists attempted to simplify these complex formulae used in traditional practices. As a result, the chemical compounds responsible for the therapeutic activity of the opium Poppy, that has been used as an analgesic and sedative by many traditions, were identified in 1804. These compounds morphine, codeine, and thebaine, belonging to a class of chemicals, known as alkaloids, are still in use for the same purposes, but addiction to them has become a problem. Around the same time, other alkaloids, like atropine from belladonna, caffeine from coffee beans, and quinine from cinchona bark, were also discovered. In 1888, a Chicago physician Dr. Wallace C. Abbott began producing standardised dosage forms, i.e., pills, containing these compounds for the convenience of prescribing physician. His home-based operation, then known as Abbott Alkaloids, grew into the pharmaceutical conglomerate Abbott Laboratories, and that was where this writer cut his drug discovery teeth in an industrial setting.

In the nineteenth century, these practices were formalised in the form of pharmacopoeia in many countries, but a requirement to prove their safety, or efficacy, did not exist until the early twentieth century. It was in 1962 that the US Congress passed laws requiring drug manufacturers to prove safety and provide substantial evidence of effectiveness for the product’s intended use, before marketing authorisation was granted. That evidence had to consist of adequate and well-controlled studies, a revolutionary requirement in history. Most European countries followed suit soon thereafter.

Quinine in short supply

When quinine was in short supply to treat malaria among the Europeans invading the tropics, 18-year-old William Henry Perkin attempted to synthesize it. In 1856, with the rudimentary state of chemical knowledge, it had no chance of succeeding, but in the process, he accidentally discovered mauve, or aniline purple—the first commercialised synthetic dyestuff. The dye industry, as well as Perkin, became phenomenally successful. What does dyestuff have to do with drugs, you may wonder. Quite a lot, in fact.

While these dyes were used in the garment industry, those engaged in the study of tissues, i.e., histology, found them useful in staining the tissues for examination under the newly developed microscope. This drew the attention of Dr. Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) a German physician and pharmacologist. If different chemicals, i.e., dyes, tend to attach to specific tissue types selectively, he argued, chemical compounds can be developed to treat diseases without causing adverse effects. Inspired by this idea, he developed Salvarsan, the first drug to treat syphilis. He became known as the father of Chemotherapy, and his theory was popularly known as the ‘Magic Bullet Theory.’ In 1908, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Magic bullet theory

The magic bullet theory or the concept of targeted drugs played a key role in shaping the drug discovery paradigm as well as the regulatory environment. The ‘science’ behind this reasoning can be described as follows: there are thousands of biochemical reactions constantly running in the body to keep it alive and functioning. They are all connected to each other, and there are feedback mechanisms to keep each reaction under control so that their products are kept at the right amount. This equilibrium state required for a healthy body is referred to as homeostasis.

The magic bullet theory posits that if a reaction becomes dysregulated for some reason, the homeostasis is lost, and it manifests itself as disease. To cure the disease, the reaction must be restored to its original state by using a drug. These reactions are controlled by a class of proteins referred to as enzymes. Modulation of the dysfunctional enzyme with a specific drug, without disturbing any other, is the aim of this approach. As demonstrated by the cure of syphilis, the argument is straight forward for infectious diseases. The infecting bacterium is not part of the body, and it is easy to discover or design a drug that kills the pathogen but does not harm the body.

(To be concluded)

A few mornings ago, three SriLankan Airlines aircraft diverted to Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA), and a Turkish Airlines aircraft to Trivandrum, India, due to bad visibility on approach to their original destination, Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), Katunayake.

The public may want to know why. BIA is not equipped with an Instrument Landing System (ILS) to aid landings in instances of low visibility. Even with ILS available, the aircraft itself must be properly equipped, and crewmembers properly qualified and current on ILS procedures and practice. While the latter two requirements were satisfied, the first one was not.

As an airport in the tropics, it usually isn’t necessary for ILS capability even in intense rain. However, below the final approach path to BIA’s Runway 22 (i.e. from the land side), there is a manufacturing plant at Badalgama which uses coconut shells to produce charcoal. On cool, cloudless nights, such as at this time of the year, cool ground temperatures create a phenomenon known as Radiation fog and ‘temperature inversion’. That is, instead of air temperature reducing with altitude (as the air rises), the air temperature becomes warmer higher up, thus trapping the smoke at lower levels. Consequently, in combination with prevailing winds, the factory’s smoke creates ‘smog’ (smoke and fog) that does not dissipate to the higher atmosphere, resulting in visibility conditions that are below legal limits for landing jet aircraft.

This happens once or twice a year, necessitating a diversion of incoming aircraft to an ‘alternate’ (i.e. alternative) airport. Interestingly, the chairman of SriLankan Airlines was a board member of the company which profits from exporting a product called ‘activated carbon’. Descending into the smog layer, the airplane’s air conditioning compressors ingest out-side air which smells like what we ‘old timers’ experienced when walking past a laundry using coconut shell-fired cloths irons in the good old days.

Airline diversions cost airlines money. Can we make the factory accountable by eliminating the air pollution they create, or get them to move their plant somewhere else?

– GUWAN SEEYA