Midweek Review

C 4 narrative reminiscent of its previous ones on the eve of the annual Geneva sessions and Sallay’s challenge

Published

3 years ago

2023/09/13

Easter Sunday plot:

C4 presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy towards the end of their latest film on Sri Lanka, posed three questions to the viewers. Did Sallay meet those who perpetrated the Easter Sunday massacre? Did the Directorate of Military Intelligence mislead police, and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in his capacity as the President, sabotage the investigation? Those accused should answer these questions. As Guru-Murthy stressed that the families of those who perished deserved the truth. Perhaps, those genuinely interested in establishing the truth should also investigate/seek an explanation why extremist NTJ mounted suicide attacks to facilitate the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, always portrayed as a Sinhala Buddhist hardliner. C4 should accept Sallay’s challenge to verify his whereabouts/activities in 2018 and 2019 with Malaysian and Indian authorities. On its own, C4 can verify when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country. The Indian origin Guru-Murthy declared that Rajapaksa fled on Sept. 22, 2022 whereas the truth is the President flew out of Colombo on July 13, 2022 and returned on Sept 03, 2022. That basic blunder highlights how the media can be overwhelmed by a ‘story.’

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Hanzeer Azad Maulana, who had been with Sivanesathurai Santhirakanthan aka Pilleyan (formerly of the LTTE), till he fled the country and decided to seek political asylum in the West last year, in an interview with Channel 4 (C4) Television last week accused Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay of facilitating the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage to get Gotabaya elected as the President.

How could Sallay have had engineered such a big clandestine operation that included meeting would-be terrorist suicide bombers at a coconut estate as allegedly arranged by Maulana at the behest of Pillayen, while being posted to the Sri Lanka High Commission in Malaysia (Dec. 2016-Dec. 2018) and then from January 2019-Nov. 2019 when he was at the National Defence College, India, including on the day of the cowardly near simultaneous suicide blasts targeting civilians on the morning of Easter Sunday April 21, 2019, and another a few hours later at New Tropical Inn, Dehiwela, near the National Zoo that sent shock waves, not only through Sri Lanka, but across the world?

State Minister Pilleyan is the Leader of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), a breakaway faction of the LTTE in Parliament. Pilleyan, elected from the eastern Batticaloa district, is the only TMVP MP in Parliament aligned with the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government.

Sallay’s alleged role in the Easter Sunday carnage is based on the claim of a sole individual Maulana that the senior military officer met the group of would-be suicide bombers at a large coconut estate, bordering the Kalpitiya lagoon at Karadipuval, in Wanathavilluwa, in the Puttalam District, in Feb. 2018. whereas the officer being accused says there are plenty of international alibis to prove he was not in Sri Lanka during the period concerned. Sallay insists that he never left Malaysia, for any destination, during 2018. The estate is called Lactowatta. The blasts claimed the lives of 269 persons, including 43 foreigners. Eight British tourists were among them. It would be necessary to stress Maulana’s claim that he arranged the meeting at the behest of directives received from Pilleyan, in September 2017 and January 2018.

During this entire period, Pilleyan, an erstwhile sidekick of Karuna (Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan aka Karuna), had been in remand for his alleged involvement in the assassination of Joseph Pararajasingham of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA National List) in Dec. 2005.

In response to queries posed in August this year by the UK-based production company, Basement Films, which produced the latest C4 film, Sallay asked them to verify with Malaysian and Indian authorities of his whereabouts in Feb. 2018 and April 19, 2021. That is the crux of the matter.

War-winning Army Chief Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka’s suggestion that Sallay may have entered Sri Lanka through an illegal route, in 2018, shows how diabolical and politically motivated he could be, having jumped headlong into the political cesspit at the end of the war.

Our Colombo 07-type folks might still swallow that myth about the British sense of justice and fair play and will readily accept anything aired by its media institutions as the gospel truth. Let us first of all not forget that it was the BBC that gave the signal to topple the duly elected democratic government of Iran, led by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, in 1953.

The truth is London, which was deeply involved in slavery, having plundered much of the world in the name of god and king/queen, is still up to the same old tricks but in less lethal ways. In recent decades, virtually all their “highly respectable” banks have been fined hundreds of millions of dollars by American regulators for laundering drug money for international narcotic cartels. So we need not talk about how it went to war with China to dump opium in that country, in the 19th Century.

The Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government should request Malaysian and Indian assistance in this regard. The government shouldn’t, under any circumstance, hesitate to have these accusations investigated. The failure to take tangible measures to ascertain the truth, without further delay, can cause catastrophic and irreversible damage. There shouldn’t be any issue with the government seeking foreign assistance as Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), European Intelligence services and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) had been already involved in the Easter Sunday investigations.

C4 declared that Maulana, who fled Sri Lanka in 2022, and submitted himself to European Intelligence agencies and the United Nations Human Rights Council, won the confidence of interviewers. Against the backdrop of UNHRC and European Intelligence services asserting Maulana’s claim credible, it would be pertinent to ask them whether they verified Maulana’s claim that Sallay travelled to Colombo and then Lactowatta, in Feb, 2018. Had they done so, the latest C4 episode would have ‘decapitated’ Sallay.

In fact, the meeting at Lactowatta seems to be central to the heinous plot as towards the end of the much-touted C4 film, Maulana declared with authority that the Feb. 2018 secret meeting between Sallay and would-be suicide bombers took place at the same location. Therefore, Sri Lanka should immediately have Sallay’s ‘clandestine’ visit to Colombo, in Feb. 2018, as alleged by C4, investigated with the highest international participation.

Perhaps, the vast majority of complacent Sri Lankans had quite conveniently forgotten the raid conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Lactowatta, on January 16, 2019. The plainclothesmen were later joined by elite Police Commandos. The CID was hunting for those who had vandalized Buddhist statues in the Mawanella, Peradeniya and Velambada police areas from Dec 23, 2018 to Dec 26, 2018. Some authorities described Lactowatta as a Jihadist Training Camp though it didn’t have any infrastructure.

Allegations pertaining to the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) hindering investigations into extremist activities should be examined taking into consideration a petition filed by Gnanendra Shani Abeysekara, retired SSP who served as the Director, CID (2017-2019). The veteran investigator moved SC in terms of Article 126 read with Article 17 of the Constitution in Feb. 2022 claiming an attempt to implicate him over his failure to thwart the Easter Sunday carnage.

The ex-top cop’s specific allegations directed at the State Intelligence Service (SIS) and DMI as regards the overall investigation into extremist activities, including high profile claim that two persons, including an ex-LTTE cadre, were falsely implicated in the killing of two police constables (Ganesh Dinesh and Walpita Gamage Niroshan Indika Prasanna) on Nov 30, 2018, at a checkpoint at Vavunathivu, Batticaloa. What Abeysekara said was astonishing. The heavyset one-time Police Commando alleged that the SIS and DMI made a deliberate bid to deceive the CID pertaining to the Vavunathivu incident. Abeysekara also declared that the Easter Sunday carnage could have been averted if the SIS and DMI shared information regarding those who killed the constables. If Sri Lanka is genuinely interested in establishing the truth, the entire gamut of issues should be investigated.

The CID swooped down on Lactowatta in the late afternoon of January 16, 2019. Mohamad Razik Thaslim, Coordinating Secretary to the then Yahapalana Minister Kabir Hashim, accompanied the CID team to Lactowatta. On March 29, 2019, Thaslim was shot in the head while he was asleep at his home located at Danagama, Mawanella, by Islamic extremists soon thereafter. In spite of receiving severe injuries, he survived.

Who really prevented the government from going all out against the extremist groups, at least after the raid on Lactowatta, and the assassination attempt on Kabir Hashim’s aide? Regardless of the SIS and DMI not providing anticipated support to the CID, the raid on Lactowatta revealed the growing threat posed by extremists, led by deranged Zahran. The Yahapalana leadership owed an explanation why it couldn’t/didn’t thwart the plot, especially after India warned, on April 04, 2019, of imminent attacks.

The conduct of the SIS and DMI during that period should be thoroughly examined and if the retired SSP allegation proved right those responsible should be appropriately and harshly dealt with.

Rajan Hoole’s disclosure

Academic Dr. Rajan Hoole dealt with the Easter Sunday carnage several weeks before the last presidential election on Nov. 16, 2019. Titled ‘Sri Lanka’s Easter Tragedy: When the Deep State gets out of its Depth’ in the Ravaya publication. It skillfully discussed the circumstances leading to the first and the only terrorist attack since the successful conclusion of the war in May 2009. At that time, Hoole deliberated the Easter Sunday plot, Maulana remained with Pilleyan. If what Maulana claimed in his interview with C4 is true then he had no qualms in working with Pilleyan, even after the Easter Sunday massacre, until he left the country.

The author is the brother of Ratnajeevan Hoole, who served as a member of the Election Commission during the Yahapalana administration. Having perused the book and its Sinhala translation (translated by Mahinda Hatthaka, Movement for Defense of Democratic Rights), there cannot be any dispute Hoole shed light on the complex web of secrets/situations/relationships that created an environment conducive for the murderous plot.

Hoole, who authored ‘The Arrogance of Power: Myths, decadence and murder,’ in January 2001, quite clearly blamed the State elements for the attack. A founding member of the daring and pioneering University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) Jaffna that defied the LTTE at its might with its clandestine publications, Dr. Hoole is explicit in his accusation that those who backed SLPP candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa created an environment to deprive the Muslims of an opportunity to vote at the Nov. 2019 presidential election. The author asserted that the attempt failed while making reference to the plantation Tamils being disenfranchised in 1949, consequent to the 1948 Citizenship Act. However, the author quite conveniently refrained from recalling how the LTTE-TNA combine denied the northern community an opportunity to vote at the Nov. 2005 presidential election. That calculated move definitely cost UNP candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe the election. Wickremesinghe lost by 186,000 votes. The writer discussed Hoole’s assertions in an article titled ‘Failed 2015 political project may have triggered Easter Sunday attacks,” on Oct. 21, 2020 edition of The Island.

Therefore, Moulana’s interview didn’t surprise the vast majority though he appeared to have caused an unnecessary complication by his unsubstantiated claim that Sallay met would-be suicide bombers at Lactowatta in Feb. 2018 whereas the officer being accused challenged C4 to check with Malaysia whether he left for Colombo during the whole of that year.

At the time Zahran mounted the attacks, the UNP-SLFP Yahapalana arrangement was in tatters against the backdrop of President Sirisena’s failed bid to oust Premier Wickremesinghe. The extremists couldn’t have been unaware of the pathetic state of governance and sought to exploit the situation. The overall failure of that government should be reviewed taking into consideration a specific warning given to President Sirisena by the then Senior DIG Ravi Seneviratne, in charge of the CID and SSP (petitioner) Abeysekara regarding the extremist threat as the destruction of Buddhist statues was carried out by the group that managed Lactowatta.

In his petition to the Supreme Court, SSP Abeysekara alleged that President Sirisena didn’t keep his promise to grant Seneviratne an opportunity to brief the National Security Council of the extremist threat, thereby marshaling SIS and DMI support to eradicate it. The ex-President must be asked to explain as to why he failed to take action after having met the two cops on Feb. 02, 2019, about 11 weeks ahead of the attacks. Sri Lanka received the first Indian warning on April 04, 2019.

As Maulana alleged, could Sallay interfere with the DMI while serving as Minister Counsellor in Malaysia and subsequently during the NDC course? If India knew of the plot, its intelligence services couldn’t have missed Sallay’s alleged involvement and placed him under surveillance.

A fresh look at accountability issues

Former CID officer Inspector Nishantha Silva was among those interviewed by C4. The British television channel disclosed that European intelligence services talked to Silva, too. The Swiss Embassy in Colombo facilitated Silva’s clandestine departure just over a week after Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s election, as the seventh executive president, with an overwhelming majority. Claiming that he was obstructed by Navy and Army intelligence, the experienced investigator essentially commented on the assassination of the founding editor of Sunday Leader Lasantha Wickramatunga on January 08, 2009. The C4 film blamed Wickrematunga’s assassination on what it called ‘Tripoli platoon’ run by Pilleyan. C4 described the unit as a para-military outfit tasked with eliminating those who earned the wrath of the Rajapaksas. The unit was accused of enforcing disappearances.

It would be pertinent to mention that close on the heels of Inspector Silva fleeing to Switzerland, local Swiss Embassy employee Garnier Francis, formerly Siriyalatha Perera, caused quite a controversy by alleging government agents sexually abused her after having abducted her outside the mission. Her claim was subsequently proved to be a blatant lie. The case was settled after she retracted her claims that were given prominent attention by the New York Times, but not her retraction or the exoneration of the government by the ccourts.

The others interviewed by C4 were Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, former Human Rights Commissioner (during the Yahapalana administration) and Attorney-at-Law Ambika Satkunanathan, former Sunday Leader editor Frederica Jansz, slain Sunday Leader editor’s elder brother, Lal Wickrematunga, former lawmaker (UNP) and one-time Ambassador to Germany Sarath Kongahage (Mahinda Rajapaksa administration), a few victims of the Easter Sunday carnage and a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Statements that cannot be examined should be discarded. (General Sarath Fonseka was sentenced to three years in jail and fined Rs.5000 in a two-one split verdict delivered in the white flag case based on an interview Jansz did in Dec. 2009, a few weeks before the presidential election. Jansz did the interview in her capacity as the Editor of Sunday Leader. It was headlined “Gota ordered them to be shot – General Sarath Fonseka’ in the Dec. 13, 2009 edition).

As anticipated, C4 dealt with Mahinda Rajapaksa’s election at the 2005 presidential election and the developments beginning with the LTTE taking up arms. C4 refrained from mentioning the origins of terrorism here but reiterated unsubstantiated allegations that 40,000 civilians perished in the final phase of the government offensive on the Vanni east front in 2009. The failure on the part of many to mention that India caused terrorism in Sri Lanka is baffling. Sri Lanka lacked the backbone to set the record straight at the UNHRC with regard to the origins of terrorism here.

Perhaps C4 still doesn’t accept that the UK Foreign Office, in response to queries posed under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in 2014 after a three year delay acknowledged that the death toll was 7,000-8,000 not 40,000 as claimed on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations. Like the person who spoke to C4 on the condition of anonymity, the identities of those who claimed 40,000 killings during that period would remain buried at least till 2031. C4 cannot ignore the official British records against the backdrop of its readiness to accept unsubstantiated allegations made by Maulana and an unidentified person. Their approach reminds us of how the UK media propagated the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) allegation to facilitate the US-British led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

At the beginning of the C4 film, reference was made to the deaths of eight British tourists in the Easter Sunday carnage. The British must be reminded how they allowed the LTTE a free hand in the UK until the Sri Lankan military erased the LTTE conventional military capability. The LTTE maintained its so-called International Secretariat in London even up to the time the terrorist group assassinated the former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi with a suicide bomber in April 1991, while their ideologue Anton Balasingham enjoyed the status of a British citizen until he died there peacefully in Dec. 2006 and his widow Adele, notorious for adorning their trade mark suicide capsules on Tiger female cadres, continue to live there scot free. Those shedding crocodile tears for terrorists should probe how millions in foreign currency were raised by the LTTE in the West since the ’80s to wage the terrorist war in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka political leadership should be ashamed for its pathetic failure to represent the country’s interests. Sri Lanka’s sponsorship of the 2015 Geneva Resolution proved the then Yahapalana government’s treachery. It betrayed its own armed forces before turning a blind eye to the growing extremist threat that culminated with the devastating 2019 Easter Sunday massacre.

The world must be reminded how LTTE terrorism here influenced far right extremist Andres Breivik to go on a killing spree in Norway in July 2011. The massacre of 77 innocent people, mostly teenagers, shocked the world. The onetime Norwegian diplomat’s son declared, ahead of the attacks, that he was inspired by the LTTE. In July 2016, European Union member state Germany asserted that an18-year-old gunman who had massacred nine people at the Olympia shopping mall in Munich was inspired by Breivik.

Even 15 years after the eradication of the LTTE, Sri Lankan political leaders haven’t been able to address accusations pertaining to accountability issues. Sri Lankan political parties seem only good at perpetrating corruption, fraud, irregularities and mismanagement. They collectively bankrupted the country, thereby helping those who still remained committed to separatist agenda here. Continuing offensive over the accountability issues is central to their overall strategy meant to do away with Sri Lanka’s unitary status. That is the bottom line.

Apropos ‘Alleged secret meeting with NTJ: Maj. Gen. Sallay says he was not in Sri Lanka for the whole of 2018’ in Sept. 07 edition of The Island, at the time Sallay arrived in Malaysia as Minister Counsellor, Pakeer Mohideen Amza served as our HC there. The career diplomat was replaced by A. J. M. Muzammil in late Feb. 2017. He was there at the time of the Easter Sunday carnage.

We thank journalist Ranga Srilal for pointing out the error in our report.

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Related Topics:Channel 4 video in Sri Lankan Easter Sunday attack Easter Sunday plot

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Midweek Review

A ‘partnership’ like no other!

Published

3 days ago

2026/09/16

Sahan Weerasooriya

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at the Indian Army memorial

Against the backdrop of the economic crisis that erupted in 2021/2022 Sri Lanka’s dependence on Indian economic and military support is growing. INS Udayagiri, Indian Navy’s indigenously built multi-role stealth frigate, that arrived at Colombo Port hours before Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh arrived here, brought essential machinery/equipment spares for Sri Lanka Navy and Sri Lanka Air Force. INS Udayagiri departed on 11 September, less than 24 hours after Singh concluded his three-day visit. The list of Indian support is long. In June this year, India swiftly transferred military stores worth USD 5.5 million to Sri Lanka Army on gratis basis from its operational stocks. India stepped in when Sri Lanka appealed for assistance to deploy over 1,000-member military contingent in Haiti under the UN command to help maintain order in that violence ridden country.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Parliament on 9 Sept. passed the Chief of Defence Staff (Repeal) Bill, over one and half years after the last Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Shavendra Silva retired.

The wartime General Officer Commanding (GoC) of the celebrated 58 Division (former Task Force 1) bid farewell to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on 1 January, 2025, following some record breaking achievements, leading his troops from the front in the final phase of the war to eradicate the Tiger terrorists.

Following the debate on the second reading of the Bill, on 9 Sept., the Bill was passed without a division. It clearly indicated that the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB)-led Opposition wasn’t at least interested in making an obvious issue out of it. The Bill has been introduced to repeal the Chief of Defence Staff Act, No. 35 of 2009, enacted in 2009, to carry out functions, including the coordination of activities among the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence.

Pointing out that the relevant Bill had been enacted after the conclusion of the war, the National People’s Power (NPP) government declared in Parliament that the abolition of the Office of the CDS wouldn’t harm national security. The NPP emphasised that the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration created that post to accommodate war-winning Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka after he firmly turned down the offer to accept a non-military post as Secretary to the Sports Ministry.

Amidst rapidly deepening turmoil within the government, Fonseka received the appointment as the first CDS on 15 July, 2009, in terms of the newly enacted Act. It would be pertinent to mention that the government had no option but to placate Fonseka by establishing the Office of CDS through a parliamentary Act to ensure the change of command take place, as planned.

The writer was among those assigned to cover Fonseka receiving the appointment as CDS and Maj. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya taking over the command of the war-winning Army from Fonseka. This was against a background of Fonseka wanting Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasiri succeeded him. Instead, the Rajapaksas brought in Maj. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya as Fonseka’s successor. Chandrasiri was made to retire and those who had been senior to Jayasuriya sidelined as the government tightened its grip on the Army. Therefore, the creation of the Office of the CDS to accommodate Fonseka should be considered in the appropriate context.

But, Fonseka quit the CDS post in November 2009 after reaching a consensus with the UNP-JVP combine to contest the presidential election. Air Chief Marshal Roshan Goonetileke succeeded Fonseka as CDS, on 16 November, 2009, while continuing his duties as the Commander of the Air Force.

The NPP, at the inception of its administration, quite clearly wanted to abolish the post of CDS. Silva, who received the appointment as Acting CDS, on 1 January, 2020, while serving as the Commander of the Army, relinquished the substantive post on 1 June, 2022. That happened in the wake of the 9 May countrywide systematic violence unleashed by those spearheading the high profile project to oust President Gotabaya Rajapaksa after the increasingly humiliated SLPP by the siege laid by Aragalaya activists on important government institution with a foreign dictated agenda, ordered a goon attack on those Galle Face protesters.

Retired Maj. Gen. K.B. Egodawele, former Minister Wimal Weerawansa, foreign affairs commentator Asanga Abeyagoonasekera and Prof. Sunanda Maddumabandara, who authored books on the 2022 regime change project, all pointed to external hands in the mayhem. Abeyagoonasekera went to the extent of alleging direct Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) role in the operation, while Prof. Maddumabandara named then Indian High Commissioner Gopal Baglay as the one who asked Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to take over the presidency, along with the backing of the likes of Omalpe Sobitha thera. That brought an end to the repeated attacks on US Ambassador Julie Chung over an alleged meeting with Abeywadena on the eve of President Rajapaksa being forced to flee the country.

India never challenged Prof. Maddumabandara’s declaration, widely believed to be based on revelation made by Abeywardena.

A significant visit

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s historic three-day official visit to Colombo coincided with the House passing the Chief of Defence Staff (Repeal) Bill. What a coincidence it was!

A rapidly deepening partnership spanning defence, economic aid, and regional connectivity under India’s Neighbourhood First policy dominates bilateral relations.

Singh, a senior member of the ruling Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP), laid a wreath at the Indian Army memorial, in Pelawatte, Sri Jayewardenepura, on 9 September, on the second day of his visit, as the Parliament announced the repealing of the Bill. The memorial is a stark reminder of a despicable Indian destabilisation project directed at smaller, economically weak Sri Lanka in the 80s.

Singh, who is on his second term as Defence Minister, would go down in history as the first Indian Defence Minister to pay respect at the memorial built in memory of Indian Army officers and men killed in Sri Lanka. Having established a large scale terrorist project in Sri Lanka, the Congress government destabilised Sri Lanka to facilitate signing of the so-called Indo-Lanka Peace Accord after the arm twisting by its infamous ‘parippu’ drop over Jaffna, humiliating and bringing to its knees the then ‘all-powerful’ JRJ government when its powerful friends in the West turned their backs on their perennial vasal here, dubbed the ‘20th Century Fox’. The deployment of the Indian Army followed, beginning 29 July, 1987, on a mission to ostensibly disarm terrorist groups, including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The then Indian Defence Minister K.C. Pant visited Colombo on May 30-June 1, 1988, in the run-up to the presidential election at the time the Indian Army was engaged in operations against the LTTE. India never sent another defence minister here even after Sri Lanka built a memorial near Battaramulla, in August 2008. It had been put up on a recommendation by the late Gen. Lionel Balagalle, Commander of the Army and CDS following an official visit to New Delhi in Dec., 2003.

Indian High Commissioner Ashok Kantha was the first top Indian government representative to pay floral tribute at the memorial on 15 August, 2010, over a year after Sri Lanka brought the once Indian sponsored war to a successful conclusion.

There is another Indian Army memorial in Palaly, Jaffna, built by the Indian Army in memory of 33 officers and men killed in a disastrous heli-borne assault on the LTTE, based in the Jaffna University. That assault took place on 12 Oct., 1987, at the onset of Indian operations. However, among the Indian dead inscribed on the memorial was Lieutenant Colonel Arun Kumar Chhabra who served the 10 Para (SF), elite battalion of the Parachute Regiment involved in the Jaffna University assault. Chhabra died on 14 Oct., 1989, during a gun battle with the LTTE.

The point is whatever various interested parties say today about the Indian intervention here, the truth is Premier Indira Gandhi destabilised this country in line with her strategy meant to address separatist sentiments in Tamil Nadu. India cannot absolve itself of the responsibility for the massive death and destruction caused not only in Sri Lanka but also the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who advanced his slain mother’s strategy by deploying the Indian Army here.

Indian trained terrorists, the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), almost succeeded in overthrowing Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in Nov., 1988. Two boat loads of PLOTE terrorists passed under the nose of the Indian Navy, at that time responsible for controlling all movements within Sri Lanka territorial waters, to reach the Maldives. The Indian intervention in the Maldives to save the Gayoom’s administration was hailed as a spectacular Indian military operation. No one found fault with India for sponsoring PLOTE. In fact, the PLOTE, widely believed to have been disarmed by the Indian Army in line with the Indo-Lanka peace accord signed under duress, retained weapons to mount the operation. That proved the much publicised project to disarm terrorist groups, including the LTTE and PLOTE, was more a farce than anything else.

The top BJPer’s, who recently concluded his visit to Colombo, emphasised the nearly four decades long absence of an Indian Defence Minister paying respects at the Jayewardenepura monument. Interested parties have sought to depict the monument as a testament to India sacrificing life to protect Sri Lanka. But, the truth is the monument reminds the world of a politically motivated terror project that ruined Sri Lanka, caused deaths of at least 1,200 Indian military personnel, and paved the way for a coup attempt in the Maldives. Names of 1169 Indians, including 55 officers, are inscribed therein. The catastrophic Indian project also led to the invention of suicide attacks (human bombs), a tactic now practiced in different parts of the world. India experienced the horrors of suicide bombing when a Sri Lanka woman blew up Rajiv Gandhi at Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, on 21 May, 1991, over a year after India pulled out its Army from Sri Lanka.

Two Battaramulla memorials

Sri Lanka and Indian media reported Defence Minister Singh’s visit to the Indian Army memorial at Battaramulla. Unfortunately, print, electronic and social media failed to mention that the National War Memorial, with names of nearly 29,000 officers and men, who paid the supreme sacrifice, inscribed, is situated a walking distance from the Indian Army memorial. Perhaps the Indian Defence Minister should have laid a wreath at the National War Memorial, a gesture that may have somewhat atoned for an utterly irresponsible and reckless political decision.

The two memorials situated just 1.1 kms apart underscore the horrors of conflict engineered and sustained by regional power that almost destroyed Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was trapped in separatist terrorism and a simultaneous insurgency in the South that ripped the country apart.

Sri Lanka transformed its ceremonial armed forces to a worthy fighting formation over the years. The Office of the CDS had been in place throughout the war though it was not constituted by a specific law (Chief of Defence Staff Act, No. 35 of 2009).

As the armed forces expanded, the country needed a headquarters for better coordination among the armed forces and police. The Joint Operations Command (JOC) was established in 1985. In 1999, during the tenure of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the JOC was replaced by Joint Operations Bureau (JOB), a civilian led set up that failed miserably to meet the challenging task. In the same year, Kumaratunga, in her capacity as the Defence Minister, did away with the JOB and established Joint Operations Headquarters.

Kumaratunga created the Office of CDS in 2000 ahead of major northern battles. That functioned till the end of the war in May, 2009, and no one ever thought of enacting a specific Bill to constitute the Office of CDS. The NPP told Parliament, on 9 September, that a staggering Rs 8.7 bn had been spent on the Office of CDS, since 2009.

Multi-role stealth frigate INS Udayagiri at the Colombo port. The ship
visit coincided with Singh’s 3-day tour

The Indian political establishment largely ignored the humiliating loss of lives suffered during the mission in Sri Lanka. They conveniently forgot the disastrous intervention though the High Commissioner here visited the Battaramulla memorial in 2010. However, Modi, having captured power at the 2014 general election, initiated his own strategy. He first visited the Battaramulla memorial, in March, 2015, less than a year after becoming the Premier. He again visited the memorial in April, 2025, when he visited Colombo to sign seven Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs), including one on defence.

Having backed Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s ouster in 2022, Modi (Rajnath Singh served as the Defence Minister during the US-Indian operation in Colombo) endorsed the candidature of Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in February, 2024, by extending an official invitation to the leader of the NPP, as well as the JVP. Dissanayake was given the opportunity to meet External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. The message from New Delhi was loud and clear. Although Al Jazeera described the Indian move as an unlikely invitation, those who have carefully analyzed New Delhi’s actions here may realise the importance of the unexpected rescue of Somawansa Amarasinghe, in the early 90s, as the UNP government was about to capture him. Had Amarasinghe ended up in the custody of the military, the same fate that befell other party seniors, including Rohana Wijeweera, too, would have been his.

The UNP showed no mercy at all to the JVPers. Amarasinghe escaped with Indian help in February, 1990, three months after the Army executed Wijeweera. Although some speculated about a possible Indian role in saving Amarasinghe, no one could prove it. Then, unexpectedly, Amarasinghe himself, at a rally held in Kalutara, in late 2001, disclosed how India saved his life. The revelation was made at the first rally he addressed after returning home, following a 12-year exile.

Dissanayake received a second invitation from New Delhi after his historic unlikely victory achieved, thanks to outside machinations, mainly by the West ,in the run up to the Sept. 2024 presidential election. Modi announced their consensus on entering into MoU on defence at the conclusion of Dissanayake’s Dec. 2024 visit, though the joint statement didn’t say so. India swiftly moved to finalise the Defence MoU along with six other MoUs in the first week of April 2025 when Modi visited Colombo.

By then even the JVP/NPP had forgotten that the JVP waged insurgency against the UNP over the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord. The emergence of the NPP as the undisputed political power in Colombo has facilitated the Indian strategy here. It also facilitated US strategy, as well as joint US-Indian scheme, the future of it now very much in doubt, especially with erratic actions of President Trump.

Immediately after Modi concluded his April 2025 visit, the Colombo West International Terminal (CWIT), Sri Lanka’s first fully automated container terminal with an $800 million investment, officially commenced operations. The project that offered a significant boost to the maritime economy marked a major milestone in India–Sri Lanka infrastructure collaboration.

By then, India has secured the controlling interests of the Colombo Dockyard Limited (CDL), a move facilitated by Japan. Although the announcement regarding Japan’s Onomichi Dockyard parting with its 51% of shares to India’s state-owned Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited, supplier of warships to India et al. It was India’s first-ever acquisition of a foreign shipyard.

India never had such a hold on Sri Lanka during the war of post-conflict period. In fact, the current Indo-Lanka partnership or whatever you choose to call it seemed to be fait accompli.

The way forward

‘Yankie Dicky’s’ (JRJ was known as Yankie Dicky because of his ardent pro-American stands) nephew Ranil Wickremesinghe, in his capacity as President and Defence Minister, declared a moratorium on foreign scientific research vessels during 2024. Wickremesinghe, struggling to cope up with economic difficulties amidst being at the mercy of US and India, announced the moratorium on such ship visits. It was meant to deprive Sri Lanka of the opportunity to receive Chinese vessels. Wickremesinghe’s announcement came in the wake of US backed Indian protests over Chinese vessels Yuan Wang 5 and Shi Yan 6 vessels visiting Sri Lanka. But, Wickremesinghe’s moratorium still remains in force as the incumbent government shied away from making its position known to the public. China, having acquired the strategically situated Hambantota Port and Colombo International Container Terminals (CICT), South Asia’s premier deep water terminal, Beijing consolidated its position here. Perhaps many people do not remember that the Colombo Terminal project was awarded to a consortium involving China, in Sept, 2010, then a joint venture established under a 35-year Build–Operate and Transfer (BOT) project in 2011 and the facility inaugurated in August 2013 though construction continued till April 2014.

The Hambantota Port was acquired in 2017 during the Yahapalana government, in the wake of the Colombo Port City controversy. In spite of issues, China has established control over Colombo Port City, CICTT, as well as the Hambantota Port.

Sri Lanka may overtly take a stand that may see us as bei pro-India but at the end of the day whoever wielded political power as well as those in the Opposition wouldn’t be able to disregard Chinese interests. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa realised his folly when he declared intention to renegotiate the Hambantota Port deal. China simply dismissed the President’s proposal. The President was compelled to issue a clarification at his own expense.

The recent statement attributed by the Defence Ministry to Defence Secretary AVM (retd) Sampah Thyuyakontha regarding Sri Lanka’s readiness to seek NATO assistance drew a sharp response from General Secretary of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka Dr. G. Weerasinghe. Thuyakontha made the statement during a recent visit to Canada where he represented the government at the 28th Annual Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defence (CHOD) Conference, held in Victoria, Canada, from 31 August to 2 September 2026.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of Sri Lanka seeking NATO assistance. The CP Chief questioned Sri Lanka’s unexpected declaration while examining post-2024 presidential polls developments. It would be pertinent to mention that it was Mahinda Rajapaksa who first entered into ACSA (Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement) in March, 2007. The CP, without hesitation, criticised President Rajapaksa’s action. President Sirisena extended that agreement in 2017 though he pretended he didn’t approve it. Since the change of government in 2024, the NPP has enhanced defence relations with the US and the next year’s extension of ACSA is a foregone conclusion. Sri Lanka is set to go ahead with US-India strategies though China remains a factor that cannot be ignored, under any circumstances.

Midweek Review

Feeling political sadness as signs of hope and resistance

Published

3 days ago

2026/09/16

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Sasanka Perera
(The writer is on X as @sasmester)

A few weeks ago, a friend in India wrote to me about Ghazala Jamil’s book, What to Do with Political Sadness and Other Essays on Death, Destruction and Hauntology (2026). It had just been published by New Delhi’s Simon & Schuster India and Yoda Press. And thanks to the kindness of yet another friend, I managed to get a copy of the book. I think we are all surrounded by different forms of ‘political sadness’ both in our own country and beyond. And some of us might actually ask ourselves the same question Jamil has posed in the title of her book: What to do with political sadness? In this situation, since the book spoke to me directly, I ended up writing notes on it and reflecting on what she had to say as I read.

Globally, we live in an era governed by systemic attrition, state-sanctioned violence, and the steady dismantling of democratic institutions. In this situation, despair is frequently framed as a personal pathology or a personal tragedy that is difficult for one to reconcile with. This is particularly the case if one lives in conditions of political instability burdened with a conscience — knowing full well what is right and what is wrong but not having the power to make a difference. Contemporary neoliberal politics routinely urge the disenfranchised to practice ‘resilience’ or ‘mindfulness’ without offering serious means to deal with unbearable situations. That process helps strong-man and dictatorial politics to not only survive but also justify their destructive politics.

Ghazala Jamil thoughtfully and reflectively deals with what happens when one must deal with politics of violence up front in her collection of essays. Jamil argues that the political sadness felt by marginalized people experiencing juridical, economic, and physical destruction is neither an aberration nor a personal failure. It is, instead, a rational and ethically sound response to state power built on dispossession and intimidation. For Jamil, political sadness is a method of both perseverance in difficult conditions and a means of generating hope as well as a way of imagining a future despite being surrounded by orchestrated death, destruction and dispossession.

Rather than attempting to ‘cure’ this sadness or dismiss it as weakness, Jamil interrogates its anatomy in an attempt to locate something far more durable than passive optimism or taken-for-granted fatalism so familiar in South Asia. That is a radical, unyielding form of idealism rooted in memory and a refusal to be silenced. Idealism in this sense is increasingly becoming a scarce resource in the circumstances where most of us live and work. While reading Jamil’s essays and writing these thoughts, I was also contemplating on the unfolding politics in Sri Lanka. A recent tweet by me in response to a news item pertaining to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite requesting information from the Sri Lankan government’s proposed judicial reforms in Sri Lanka drew much criticism.

While I was concerned overall on the reforms meant to increase the retirement age of judges across the judicial hierarchy on matters of principle and potential impact on democratic governance in the country, my immediate concern was the UN’s established bias in responding to these kinds of issues. That is, the blatant lack of equality where people at the receiving end usually happen to be nations without a veto or the ability to control one in the UN. Many people, both known and unknown, were upset with the tweet claiming I did not know how the UN system worked or had not done my homework. My sense was, I was considered naïve or even stupid as I harboured a sense of idealism, which sadly they had lost. Jamil, on the other hand, might agree with me.

Across nineteen essays, spanning political philosophy, urban sociology, and cultural critique, the collection is based on a close reading of three primary and closely related theoretical positions buttressed by immediate life experiences in both India and beyond.

The first position deals with what might be called, mechanics of state violence. Here, Jamil explores the politics of physical and institutional mechanisms, that range from spatial segregation and legal disenfranchisement — such as the weaponisation of citizenship laws — to the degradation of public resources such as education and transport. In this situation, she considers death and destruction as essential byproducts of governance that may not however be always intended. But ultimately, such mechanisms define the nature and reach of state authority.

The second overall position she deals with has to do with bodily dissent and martyrdom. It is in this discussion that Jamil analyzes extreme forms of political protest, such as hunger strikes and suicide drawing from experiences ranging from India to Ireland. When the state strips vulnerable communities of institutional recourse to justice and fair play, the body becomes the final site of sovereignty and agency. But bodily self-sacrifice forces a public ethical showdown, demonstrating that even the dispossessed retain the agency to expose the moral bankruptcy of majoritarian power. Even so, such extreme protests do not always work, nevertheless keeping alive political sadness, and with it, reservoirs of hope.

The final position Jamil explores is focused on the idea of hauntology and futures. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s concept of hauntology, Jamil examines the spectral presence of unfulfilled post-colonial promises. In the Indian context, the constitutional ideals of secularism, egalitarianism, and social justice have been systematically compromised or dismantled, even though their ‘ghosts’ refuse to disappear. They haunt the present, reminding us of what was promised, what was destroyed, and what remains to be reclaimed and achieved. Therefore, this also becomes a repository for hope from where futures may be imagined.

As far as my reading is concerned, the core strength of Jamil’s work lies in how she retrieves hope from the debris of political grief. Her kind of idealism rejects toxic positivity, insisting that genuine hope can only emerge after we fully confront actual histories and experiences of destruction. This, I think, is essential, and speaks to me personally and directly in a situation where such idealism has been compromised by an unfortunate combination of naivety and political foolishness.

For Jamil, hauntology acts as an engine of political memory. Ideally, the ghosts of past struggles should prevent us from normalising present atrocities. Idealism, therefore, is not an abstract dream of a utopian future. Instead, it is the stubborn refusal to allow state violence to dictate the limits of human imagination. To feel political sadness is to remember that things were supposed to be different, and that they still could be.

Though Jamil writes from her location in India augmented by theoretical arguments that are in global circulation, what she has to say speaks to the world in the present time. This makes her critique both locally grounded and regionally and globally applicable.

In so far as India is concerned, Jamil’s critique speaks to a situation marked by the relentless rise of ethno-nationalism, religious intolerance, bulldozer politics of dispossession, and the systematic marginalisation of minority identities and their sense of being. Hope in this context is found in grassroots resistance, such as the constitutional consciousness kept alive by student movements, civil rights activists, and community-led dissenters who insist on asserting full citizenship despite systemic hostility. I would locate the recent Cockroach Janta Party agitations in this context.

As far as my own location, Sri Lanka is concerned, Jamil’s exploration of hauntology provides immediate resonance and painful familiarity. Sri Lankan society is haunted by unresolved ghosts of wartime as well as post-war absence of state accountability, forced disappearances, alienation of minorities, and the catastrophic economic collapse that dismantled public security. This is without even venturing into the violence and dispossession orchestrated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and Janata Vimukti Peramuna when these entities wielded power in their agitations against the state. The mass uprising of 2022 or the ‘aragalaya’ placed in context both the transformative power of collective hope and the tragic reality of state appropriation. Reading Jamil from Colombo underscores how South Asian states export and replicate tools of division, militarization, and erasure.

Beyond the subcontinent, Jamil’s writing indicates the necessity that localised grief must be connected to globally intertwined histories. From hyper-capitalist labor exploitation to climate displacement, the Global South faces a collective and ongoing crisis of hegemony. Reclaiming hope requires cross-border solidarity, recognising that struggles against authoritarianism or majoritarianism in South Asia and elsewhere constitutes part of a worldwide fight for human dignity.

For me, Ghazala Jamil’s What to Do with Political Sadness is an essential and thoughtful manual for ethical survival and the generation of hope in difficult times. It does not offer easy comfort or simple solutions. Instead, it offers something far more valuable: a framework for ethical survival and persevering with idealism and hope. Let me conclude with my 2022 poem, ‘Island Story’ (Let Us be Silent: Poems, Sarasavi, Nugegoda, 2025).

“To live in the blessed isle
close your ears
guard your tongue
freeze your heart

Then,
hell of despair

would seem
like
heaven of hope”

I attempted to deal with my unhappiness not merely by writing a poem, but by trying not to see what was obvious, as a means of dealing with pain and overshadowing the conscience. Jamil, will have none of this as she has convincingly argued throughout her book. By transforming political grief into an active analytical tool and method for hope, Jamil reminds us that our sadness is proof of our lingering moral clarity. In many ways, her effort is a conversation among theory, life experience and hope. For most of us, living under the shadow of disrupted pasts and lost futures, this book serves as a powerful reminder that as long as we remember what has been destroyed, the blueprint for a just world remains alive.

(A shorter version of this essay was published in The Wire [new Delhi] on 22 August 2026)