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Elephant-Human Conflict: Sweet and sad moments frozen in time. A Requiem

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7 months ago

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Mother shot dead, metres from her fatally hit calf

This story about humans and elephants was told to me by my late mother, Beta Leelawathie, in 1980. It is not a folktale.  This story really took place nearly seven decades ago, when the phrase ‘elephant-human conflict’ did not tango in the same sentence.

Back then, humans and elephants lived in harmony. By most measures, there was more forest cover for elephants then. Now, satellite images reveal that over 70% of the forest cover, once a haven for elephants, has been lost. As a result, they are at risk of harm, and land disputes between humans and them have become daily occurrences. This story is not about the daily iterations of wounded tuskers, electric fences, elephants decapitated by Yakada Yaka, or drowning in agri-wells.

This episode took place on a small chena clearing near Kidapolagama village, abandoned sometime around 1911, situated near Getalagamakanda by Galkulama, along the A9 highway in the North Central Province.   Hundreds of teledrama episodes, or Dr. R. L. Spittle in Holly/Bollywood, could not have imagined such a tale.

I paraphrase here my mother, one of the four protagonists in this story of two babies – a human and an elephant – and their mothers coming into contact under extraordinary circumstances.

The Setting

It was a 2-hectare chena clearing, located two kilometers from the village. It had been formatted a couple of weeks ago after slashing the virgin forest and burning. Two solitary figures, my mother and father, were tilling millet, kurahan, on the charred soil. They were engaged in this task at a deceptively relaxed pace in the middle of this desolate space. Their frail frames were slightly bent as they scraped the topsoil. In front of them lay a series of grids by nera, the oldest form of geometry known to humans, drawn on the cleaned-out chena floor, the nawadella, to facilitate the easy broadcasting of seeds.

The man was wearing only a tamarind-coloured loincloth. He wrapped a piece of cloth around his head. His sweaty body shone in the sweltering midday sun.  The woman was wearing a faded muslin cloth with floral designs wrapped around her waist, paired with a short-sleeved blouse.  To escape the sun, she covered her head with a piece of rag that looked more like a compressed sunbonnet.  Sweat dappled her blouse, a testament to her labour since morning. Occasionally, metallic clanks chimed as the iron blades of their mamoties struck pebbles on the soil.

A lone eagle’s high-pitched call to a mate from a tree-top at the edge of the chena clearing interrupted the jingle of the mamoties.  A cuckooing avuncular pigeon shared his thoughts while sitting on a burnt-out tree stump nearby after helping himself with a few kurahan seeds.   A clay pot of water with its mouth covered with a coconut shell sat dutifully under a tree that escaped the man’s axe a few weeks ago.  Often, hot air let out its variant dispositions breezing across the chena, and eddies of ashen air climbed from its floor spinning like flying tops and dancing away, dying in the atmosphere.

From time to time, the woman paused and straightened up to check on a bundle of clothes in the shade under a grandfatherly Palu tree about two netball courts out.  On a reed mat under its shade was her newborn son, only six months old, sleeping, half-covered with a few folds of clothing.  That baby was me.

She brought her breastfeeding baby to the chena because she had no help with babysitting. She had to help her husband finish spreading seeds soon, as for a few days now, pregnant rain clouds of the Maha season had begun to pack the horizon. Her only choice was to introduce the baby to the drudgery of Chena life.

For the nursing hour, the mother often checked her one-arm clock, a short, blackened tree stump, and its slanting shadow—the gnomon of her impromptu sundial.  After reassuring herself that it is not feeding time yet, she resumed tilling.

Visitors

In the meantime, from the other side of the clearing, a muted procession of six elephants, padding through the forest, entered the chena.  In front walked a baby elephant, not taller than a kindergarten chair, struggling to stand still like someone coming out of a tavern. The calf’s prickly hair swayed in the light wind wafting through the chena.  He moved aimlessly and sniffed at every tree stump of his size on his path.  He wobbled but moved with a proprietary air, trying to do the job of being the big guy, supposedly.   The mother who was right behind him watched his every step, though, ready to help if he ran into trouble. The other four family members obediently followed the matriarch in chronological order of age.

As the procession drifted towards the Palu tree, the calf suddenly stopped and straightened its ears. His pencil-like tail danced behind him, as if to make him look tall, long, and strong. To check the scent in the air, he raised his trunk, which wriggled like an enormous caterpillar stuck in the middle of his face. When his eyes fell on the bundle of clothes, the calf inched closer and stopped a few feet from the reed mat.  Meanwhile, the baby on the mat woke up and began to move his limbs, trying to roll over while babbling a primordial form of pre-kindergarten talk.

Then, ever so gently, the calf took a step forward and tried to place his trunk on the baby, probably out of curiosity to know whether he liked to join him. Lacking deftness, the baby elephant’s sloppy efforts missed the target a few times. He shuffled his feet and tried again.  Although this scene was unfolding in private in the open arena under the Palu tree, its full luminance had not yet reached the mother and father, who were hurrying to get to lunch break.

Meanwhile, no more than 20 meters behind the two babies in the conclave under the Palu tree, the matriarch and her entourage hardly had time to react.  All five stood frozen, watching their little one and his dance with discovery.  The only thing moving was the tip of the mother’s trunk, which hung loosely straight down. The baby elephant continued to engage his newfound pal on the reed mat.

Mother and Father

The mother or father had no idea of the silent visitors trying to improvise a dance under the Palu tree.   Then, the mother stopped tilling and casually raised her head to check on her baby.  The first thing that caught her weary eyes near the Palu tree was a line of large, earth-colored boulders that were not there before. She shook her head, brushed away her eyes, and her grip on the mamoty tightened. She was stunned, inert, and a knot formed in her throat.  By her side, unaware of her conundrum, her husband had the world to himself, tilling to end the session.  Slowly, the woman reached out and grabbed his arm and squeezed, nearly breaking it.  As the husband turned, he too saw the audience under the Palu tree.

The mother closed her eyes and then opened them to ensure she was not in a deep dream. The midday sun caused her to see stars in the shaded area under the Palu tree. Mothers always dream good dreams about their babies.   But this was no dream. As she clung to her husband’s forearm for support, she felt his pulse too, beating like drums at the temple.

Four years later, she would have another instance of a similar dimension with the same baby. One day, her son, a toddler then, stood in an alley between two houses directly in the path of a salivating dog with rabies, trotting through the same alley in the gammedda.  Her son escaped the threat only when a thoughtful neighbour clubbed the dog squarely and broke its back a few meters from the toddler.

Here in the chena, the mother was choking with horror and could not send out a plea to the other mother to take her baby back.  Had she asked, the other would not have understood it anyway – they spoke different languages. Besides, she feared any cry would alarm and create panic among elephants, and her baby would be in grave danger of being run over.  She was sweating profusely, and her vision began to taunt her.  In her view, the elephants were turning into swelling boulders. She feared that it would trample the baby.  Her one-arm clock, the tree stump sundial, had hid its gnomon shadow, announcing the midday hour.  At that moment, a tsunami was crashing into her oasis under the Palu tree, and she was drowning in delirium.   She prayed to all the gods known and advertised.  But they were not in hearing distance.

So incredible was the union in the middle of nowhere, without any forewarning, everything around her stood still as if to preserve that pristine yet intense moment.  Both mothers stood still, hoping their instincts would take over during this once-in-a-lifetime encounter. The woman’s only hope was that an elephant mother would recognise that the other baby was just as vulnerable as her own.

Suddenly, as if awakened from a siesta, the mother elephant broached. Fearing her baby would be harmed or mixed up with other ‘things’ lying on the mat, she eased forward. With her extended trunk, she wrapped him and gently pulled him out towards her.  The calf balked, but his mother’s silent insistence was too strong for him to break free.  She shoved her son underneath her chin and nudged him away from the mat. When the matriarch began to move with her baby, her family fell in line and followed her towards the edge of the chena.

After reaching the edge of the clearing, the mother elephant paused, looked back, and, as if to sum up the brief meeting, blew a hissing sound at the two frail figures staring at her. Then, the boughs of the primeval forest opened to welcome her.  With the grace of a tsarina walking into a Romanov ballroom, she disappeared into the woods.  The last elephant, probably not weaned out from its incorrigible self yet, briefly stopped and looked at the bundle of clothes and wriggling baby, before hurrying to catch up with the rest.

Beta Leelawathie Tillakaratne

The woman and the man made no sound to alarm the elephants, not only because their mouths were dry, but also because they feared the worst if the elephants became cranky. So frozen were the two that someone could have mistaken them for two shabbily dressed clay figures.  With measured steps, they then hurried to the mat.  The woman impetuously picked up the baby with shaking hands and pressed him to her bosom. She could not spoil her relief by saying anything.  But soon, a few tears rolled down her cheek. They stood stunned at this remarkable moment they had just witnessed, filled with fear which had no bottom.

Her husband closed his eyes, and images of his last watch hut on the tree in another chena, a howl away from here, flashed through his eyes.  One evening last year, he came to his watch hut, located up on a ledge of a tree, to find that an irate elephant had pulled down its cabin after getting the scent of a small container of jaggery. He ate the contents of it and tore down the pillow and other paraphernalia to shreds.

My parents had no more desire to work and called it a day.  Fearing there might be a tardy and unglued concatenation of elephants in the herd who might drop by soon they hurried home.

Recollections

In 1980, my mother remembered the lyrics of that near-deistic rendezvous. Each time she recalled it, I saw her eyes filled with tears. Even after rearing five more children of her own, that little quadruped devil still held a special place in her heart regardless of the panic he produced.  She thought that by 1980, the calf must have grown to be an old statesman, leading his band through wide naked spaces that his ancestors had known as rank forest, and now had lost the war against the multiplying tracts of the human census.  In her wistful thinking, in retrospect, she felt she owed something to that playful calf, which was ready for some mischief, who knows.

But she never thought of that family as intruders or a threat.  She rightly believed that she was the intruder in another’s habitat. Those elephants had the right of way, which is needed now more than ever.   However, we are encroaching on their space by clearing forests out of necessity and circumstances.  Elephants, like in this mother’s story, lost the space that was theirs all along, where they could take their babies for safety when humans stood between them and that refuge, which Omar Khayyam called their Wilderness Paradise.

In 1980, my mother had the foresight to tell me that the inertia of population explosion (bowenawa, her words) and dwindling land brought us to today’s conundrum, which requires urgent population control of both humans and elephants.

Despite the danger to her baby’s life at that time, my mother would cherish that moment to the end, because it was another baby trying to charm the other in that most poignant time and place. She longingly wished she could see that baby one more time.

She told me this remarkable cross-cultural encounter, though unquestionably dangerous and unavoidable due to circumstances forcing both parties to an unwelcome council, was beautiful, nonetheless.  Two babies, precious to their mothers and respective clans, but completely unrelated to each other in so many ways, found themselves extemporised in a blessed moment and thrust upon them by the very nature of the orchestral environments they rightfully owned, shared, and lived.

Dedication and a Requiem

I dedicate this story to the memory of another mother elephant and her baby, both killed by humans on a November 2019 night on the road near Habarana. Around 2.30 a.m. on that fateful, a Colombo-Trincomalee bus hit and killed the baby elephant standing by his mother on the edge of the road. As the mother stood grieving for hours by the body of the calf, heedless vehicular traffic and onlookers flustered her. However, thinking she would become a danger to people and vehicles passing by her lost world, the police took control of the scene.

Without ever trying to call the experts and sedate the mother to remove her dead calf from the road so that she could grieve undisturbed and alone, they shot her dead.

She took her last breath staring at the lifeless body of her calf.   That mother did not have to be killed.  May this be a requiem for her and her calf, and may both attain Nibbana!    

Lokubanda Tillakaratne ✍️
(This essay is adapted from the writer’s Echoes of the Millstone (2013).  

 


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Features

We banned phone; we kept surveillance; teenagers noticed

Published

12 hours ago

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2026/04/1

By

THE GREAT DIGITAL RETHINK : PART III OF V

The Teenage Battleground

Secondary school has always been a battlefield of sorts, competing loyalties, volatile friendships, the daily theatre of adolescent identity. But in the past decade it acquired a new and uniquely modern dimension: the smartphone in the pocket, the social media feed refreshing every few minutes, the group chat that never sleeps.

The numbers, when they arrived, were not subtle. PISA 2022 data, drawn from students in over 80 countries, found that around 65 percent of students reported being distracted by their own digital devices in mathematics lessons, and 59 percent said a classmate’s device had pulled their attention away. Students who reported being distracted by peers’ phones scored, on average, 15 points lower in mathematics than those who said it never happened. Fifteen points is not a rounding error. It is a meaningful, measurable, recurring gap that appears consistently across countries with very different education systems.

Governments took notice of the situation. In a pattern that will be familiar to readers of this series, a number of them reached for the most visible, most politically satisfying tool available – the ban in Finland, Sweden, Australia, and France. The UK, in a characteristically chaotic way, involving years of guidance, and pilots, eventually legalised. One by one, secondary schools across the wealthy world have begun confiscating phones at the gate, storing them in pouches, locking them up in boxes, and discovering, somewhat to their own surprise, that this works.

When the Ban Actually Works

A 2025 survey of nearly a thousand principals in New South Wales found that 87 percent reported students were less distracted after the ban was introduced, and 81 percent said learning had improved. South Australia recorded a 63 percent decline in critical incidents involving social media and a 54 percent reduction in behavioural issues. These are striking figures, and they align with what common sense would predict: if you remove the distraction, concentration improves.

What is also emerging from Australian, Finnish and Swedish schools is something less expected and more interesting: the character of break times has changed. Teachers and principals report that when phones disappear from pockets, something older reappears in their place. Students talk to each other. They play. They argue, resolve disputes, make and lose friendships in the ancient, messy, face-to-face way that adolescence has always demanded but that the smartphone had been quietly crowding out. The playground, it turns out, was not broken. It was just occupied.

Sweden’s nationwide policy, coming into effect in autumn 2026, will require schools to collect phones for the full day, not just during lessons. This is the more ambitious intervention, and the one that addresses what the Australian experience has already demonstrated: that the damage done by constant connectivity is not confined to the classroom. It happens at lunch. It happens between periods. It happens in the 10 minutes before the bell when a group of 14-year-olds are supposedly in the building but are actually, in every meaningful sense, somewhere else entirely.

87% of Australian principals said students were less distracted after the ban. The other 13% presumably hadn’t tried it yet.

But Here Is What Nobody Wants to Talk About

Here is the part that the ministers’ press releases do not mention. While the smartphone, the device the student owns, controls and carries, has been banned from the secondary classroom, the institution’s own digital apparatus has been expanding at an impressive pace throughout the same period. Learning management systems now mediate most of secondary school life in high-income countries. Assignments are distributed digitally. Work is submitted digitally. Attendance is recorded digitally. Grades are published on portals that students, parents and administrators can access in real time. The school that bans your personal phone may simultaneously be recording precisely how long you spent on each page of the online reading assignment last Tuesday.

Learning analytics, the practice of harvesting data from student interactions with digital platforms to inform teaching and school management, has moved from a niche research curiosity to a mainstream tool. PISA 2022 data show that virtually all 15-year-olds in OECD countries attend schools with some form of digital infrastructure. Behind that infrastructure sits a layer of data collection that most students and many parents are only dimly aware of: log-in times, click patterns, quiz scores, time-on-task measures, platform engagement metrics. These are assembled into dashboards, fed into algorithms, and used, with genuinely good intentions, in most cases, to identify struggling students early.

The genuinely good intentions do not resolve the underlying problem. Research on learning analytics raises serious concerns about privacy, about the opacity of algorithmic decision-making, and about what happens when a teenager is quietly flagged as ‘at risk’ by a system they never knew was watching. The irony of secondary de-digitalisation is not lost on those paying attention: we have removed the device the student controls, while expanding the systems that observe and score them.

The AI Proctor in the Room

During the pandemic, when exams moved online, a number of education authorities adopted software that monitored students through their webcams, flagging unusual eye movements, background sounds, or the presence of other people in the room as potential signs of cheating. The systems were sold as efficient, scalable and objective. They were, in practice, frequently absurd.

The software flagged students who looked away from the screen to think. It penalised students whose rooms were small, shared or noisy, disproportionately those from less privileged backgrounds. It struggled with students of colour, whose features were less well-represented in the training data. It was contested, appealed, gamed, and eventually abandoned by a significant number of institutions that had initially adopted it with enthusiasm. By 2024 and 2025, the rollback was visible. Universities and some school systems were returning, with minimal fanfare, to supervised in-person examinations, handwritten, on paper, in a room with a human invigilator, partly to solve the AI cheating problem, partly to solve the AI proctoring problem. The wheel had, somewhat dizzingly, turned full circle.

We banned the student’s phone. We kept the webcam that monitors their eye movements during exams. Progress.

The Equity Problem That Bans Cannot Solve

Beneath the headline politics of phone bans lies a more uncomfortable question about who, exactly, benefits from secondary school de-digitalisation, and who pays a cost that is rarely acknowledged. The argument for phone bans on equity grounds is real: unrestricted phone use in schools amplifies social hierarchies. The student with the latest device, the most followers, the most compelling social media presence occupies a different social universe from the student without. Removing phones during the school day levels that particular playing field.

But the equity argument runs the other way, too, once you look beyond school hours. Secondary schools in high-income systems have steadily increased their dependence on digital platforms for homework, assessment preparation and communication. If a school bans phones during the day and then sends students home to complete digitally-mediated assignments, the burden of that homework falls unequally.

There is also the growing phenomenon of what researchers are beginning to call ‘shadow digital education’: the private online tutoring platforms, AI-powered study tools and exam preparation services that affluent families use to supplement and extend what school provides. While secondary schools debate whether students should be allowed to use AI for essay drafts, some of those students’ wealthier peers are already using it, skillfully, privately and with considerable academic advantage. The phone ban, whatever its merits in the classroom, does not touch this market. It may even quietly accelerate it.

Two Worlds, Still Diverging

In Finland, Sweden and Australia, the policy conversation is about how to manage the excesses of a generation that grew up digitally saturated, how to restore concentration, how to protect wellbeing, how to ensure that institutional platforms serve learning rather than merely monitor it.

Elsewhere, across much of Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and parts of the Middle East, the secondary school conversation remains anchored to a different set of concerns: how to get enough devices into enough classrooms, how to train enough teachers to use them, how to ensure that the smartboard contract does not expire before the teachers learn to turn it on. Vendors are present, helpful and commercially motivated. Development banks are funding rollouts. Government ministers are visiting showrooms. The playbook being followed is the one that Finland and Sweden wrote in 2010 and are now revising.

SERIES ROADMAP:

Part I: From Ed-Tech Enthusiasm to De-Digitalisation | Part II: Phones, Pens & Early Literacy | Part III: Attention, Algorithms & Adolescents (this article) | Part IV: Universities, AI & the Handwritten Exam | Part V: A Critical Theory of Educational De-Digitalisation

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Features

A Buddhist perspective on ageing and decay

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12 hours ago

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2026/04/1

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Buddhism is renowned for its profound insights into ageing and decay, known as jara in Pali. Through its teachings and practices, Buddhism cultivates the wisdom and mental clarity necessary to accept and prepare for the inevitability of ageing. The formula jati paccayaā jaraāmaranaṃ translates to “dependent on birth arise ageing and death,” clearly illustrating that birth inevitably leads to ageing and death, accompanied by sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. Without birth, there would be no ageing and death. Therefore, ageing is a fundamental aspect of suffering as outlined in the Four Noble Truths.

Buddhism encourages us to confront the realities of ageing, illness, and mortality head-on. Old age is recognised as an unavoidable aspect of dukkha (suffering). Old age is fundamentally and inextricably entwined with the concept of impermanence(annicca), serving as the most visible, undeniable evidence that all conditioned things are in a state of flux and decay. Ageing, illness and death create in us an awareness not only of dukkha but also impermanence. The Buddha taught, “I teach suffering and the way out of suffering.” Here, “suffering” encompasses not only physical pain but also the profound discomfort that arises when our attempts to escape or remedy pain stemming from old age are thwarted. Instead of fearing old age, Buddhists are encouraged to embrace it, release attachments to youth, and cultivate wisdom, gratitude, and inner peace.

Ageing is a complex process shaped by both genetic and environmental factors. From a Buddhist viewpoint, we should perceive the body realistically. Fundamentally, the human body can be seen as a vessel of impurities, subject to old age, disease, decay, and death. The natural process of ageing is gradual, irreversible, and inevitable. Every individual must ultimately come to terms with the reality of growing old, as change is an essential fact of life.

In Buddhism, impermanence (anicca) holds a central position. Everything that exists is unstable and transient; nothing endures forever—including our bodies and all conditioned phenomena. Thus, anicca, dukkha, and anattaā (non-self or selflessness) are the three characteristics common to all conditioned existence. The reality of impermanence can often evoke pain, yet a wise Buddhist fully understands and appreciates this simple yet profound truth.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus encapsulated this notion when he stated, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.” Old age was one of the four sights that prompted Prince Siddhartha Gautama to seek enlightenment, alongside sickness, death, and the wandering ascetic. Coming to terms with these aspects of existence was pivotal in his transformation into the Buddha.

At Sāvatthi, King Pasenadi of Kosala once asked the Buddha, “Venerable sir, is there anyone who is born who is free from old age and death?” The Buddha replied, “Great King, no one who is born is free from ageing and death. Even those affluent khattiyas—rich in wealth and property, with abundant gold and silver—are not exempt from ageing and death simply because they have been born.” This interaction underscores the universal challenge of ageing, transcending societal divisions of wealth or status.

Ageing presents one of the greatest challenges in human experience. Physically, the body begins to deteriorate; socially, we may find ourselves marginalised or discounted, sometimes subtly and sometimes explicitly. Some may encounter dismissal or condescension. Ageism remains one of the most persistent forms of discrimination. The physical and social difficulties associated with ageism can undermine our self-image and sense of self-worth. Common perceptions often portray old age as a stage where the best years are behind us, reducing the remaining years to a form of “bonus years” frequently presented in sentimental or patronising ways.

The suffering associated with ageing can serve as a powerful motivation to engage in practices that directly address this suffering, allowing us to gradually transform it or, at the very least, make it more bearable and manageable. We must recognise that this principle applies equally to our own bodies. The human body undergoes countless subtle changes every moment from the time you are born, never remaining the same even for two consecutive moments, as it is subject to the universal law of impermanence.

Whatever your age. However young-looking you try to remain through external means, the truth is that you are getting older every minute. Every minute, every second, our lives are getting shorter and closer to death. Since you were conceived in your mother’s womb, your life is getting shorter. We see external things going by rapidly, but never reflect on our own lives. No matter what we do, we cannot fully control what happens in our lives or to our bodies. With time, we all develop lines and wrinkles. We become frail, and our skin becomes thinner and drier. We lose teeth. Our physical strength and sometimes our mental faculties decline. In old age, we are subject to multiple diseases.

Many people live under the illusion that the body remains constant and is inherently attractive and desirable. Modern society, in particular, has become increasingly obsessed with the quest for eternal youth and the reversal of the ageing process. Many women feel inadequate about their physical appearance and constantly think about how to look younger and more attractive. Enormous sums of money are spent on cosmetic procedures, skincare, and grooming products to remain presentable and desirable. The global beauty and cosmetics industries thrive on this ideal, often promoting unrealistic standards of beauty and youthfulness. But no amount of products available in the world can truly restore lost youth, as time inevitably leaves its mark.

Therefore, in Buddhism, mindful reflection on ageing and the human body is considered essential for overall well-being. This contemplation provides insight into impermanence as we navigate life. Reflecting on the nature of the body—its true condition and its delicate, changing state—is a fundamental aspect of the Buddha’s teachings. By understanding the body accurately, we support both wisdom and peace of mind.

Buddhism recognises forty subjects of meditation which can differ according to the temperaments of persons. Contemplation of the human body is one of them. Of all the subjects of meditation, reflection on the human body as a subject is not popular among certain people particularly in the western world as they think such contemplation would lead to a melancholic morbid and pessimistic outlook on life. They regard it as a subject that may be somewhat unpleasant and not conducive to human wellbeing. Normally, people who are infatuated and intoxicated with sensual pleasures develop an aversion towards this subject of meditation. In Buddhism this mode of contemplation is called asuba bhavana or mindfulness of the impurities of the body. It is all about our physiology and individual body parts and organs internal as well as external. This subject of meditation is unique to the Buddhist teachings.

To appreciate the body as it truly is, we must set aside preconceived notions and engage in a calm and honest inquiry: Is this body genuinely attractive or not? What is it composed of? Is it lasting or subject to decay?

In embracing the teachings of Buddhism, we find the wisdom to navigate the journey of ageing with grace, transforming our understanding of this natural process into an opportunity for growth and acceptance.

When our fears centre on ageing, decay, and disease, we cannot overcome them by pretending they do not exist. True relief comes only from facing these realities directly.

Reflecting on the body’s unattractive and impermanent nature can help us gain a realistic perspective. In an age when the mass media constantly bombards people with sensual images, stimulating lust, greed, and attachment, contemplation of the body’s true nature can bring calm and clarity.

All beings that are born must eventually die. Every creature on earth, regardless of status, shares this common fate. After death, the body undergoes a series of biological changes and decomposes, returning to the earth as organic matter. It is part of the earth and ultimately dissolves back into it.

Understanding this, we can meet ageing, decay, and death with greater wisdom, less fear, and a deeper sense of peace.

by Dr. Justice Chandradasa Nanayakkara

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Features

Partnering India without dependence

Published

2 days ago

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2026/03/31

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President Dissanayake with Indian PM Modi

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again signaled the priority India places on Sri Lanka by swiftly dispatching a shipload of petrol following a telephone conversation with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The Indian Prime Minister’s gesture came at a cost to India, where there have been periodic supply constraints and regional imbalances in fuel distribution, even if not a countrywide shortage. Under Prime Minister Modi, India has demonstrated to Sri Lanka an abundance of goodwill, whether it be the USD 4 billion it extended in assistance to Sri Lanka when it faced international bankruptcy in 2022 or its support in the aftermath of the Ditwah cyclone disaster that affected large parts of the country four months ago. India’s assistance in 2022 was widely acknowledged as critical in stabilising Sri Lanka at a moment of acute crisis.

This record of assistance suggests that India sees Sri Lanka not merely as a neighbour but as a partner whose stability is in its own interest. In contrast to Sri Lanka’s roughly USD 90 billion economy, India’s USD 4,500 billion economy, growing at over 6 percent, underlines the vast asymmetry in economic scale and the importance of Sri Lanka engaging India. A study by the Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy identifies Sri Lanka as the second most vulnerable country in the world to severe food price surges due to its heavy reliance on imported energy and fertilisers. Income per capita remains around the 2018 level after the economic collapse of 2022. The poverty level has risen sharply and includes a quarter of the population. These indicators underline the urgency of sustained economic recovery and the importance of external partnerships, including with India.

It is, however, important for Sri Lanka not to abdicate its own responsibilities for improving the lives of its people or become dependent and take this Indian assistance for granted. A long unresolved issue that Sri Lanka has been content to leave the burden to India concerns the approximately 90,000 Sri Lankan refugees who continue to live in India, many of them for over three decades. Only recently has a government leader, Minister Bimal Rathnayake, publicly acknowledged their existence and called on them to return. This is a reminder that even as Sri Lanka receives support, it must also take ownership of its own unfinished responsibilities.

Missing Investment

A missing factor in Sri Lanka’s economic development has long been the paucity of foreign investment. In the past this was due to political instability caused by internal conflict, weaknesses in the rule of law, and high levels of corruption. There are now significant improvements in this regard. There is now a window to attract investment from development partners, including India. In his discussions with President Dissanayake, Prime Minister Modi is reported to have referred to the British era oil storage tanks in Trincomalee. These were originally constructed to service the British naval fleet in the Indian Ocean. In 1987, under the Indo Lanka Peace Accord, Sri Lanka agreed to develop these tanks in partnership with India. A further agreement was signed in 2022 involving the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation to jointly develop the facility.

However, progress has been slow and the project remains only partially implemented. The value of these oil storage tanks has become clearer in the context of global energy uncertainty and tensions in the Middle East. Energy analysts have pointed out that strategic storage facilities can provide countries with greater resilience in times of supply disruption. The Trincomalee tanks could become a significant strategic asset not only for Sri Lanka but also for regional energy security. However, historical baggage continues to stand in the way of Sri Lanka’s deeper economic linkage with India. Both ancient and modern history shape perceptions on both sides.

The asymmetry in size and power between the two countries is a persistent concern within Sri Lanka. India is a regional power, while Sri Lanka is a small country. This imbalance creates both opportunities for partnership and anxieties about overdependence. The present government too has entered into economic and infrastructure agreements with India, but many of these have yet to move beyond initial stages. This has caused frustration to the Indian government, which sees its efforts to support Sri Lanka’s development as not being sufficiently appreciated or effectively utilised. From India’s perspective, delays and hesitation can appear as a lack of commitment. From Sri Lanka’s perspective, caution is often driven by domestic political sensitivities and concerns about sovereignty.

Power Imbalance

At the same time, global developments offer a cautionary lesson. The behaviour of major powers in the contemporary international system shows that states often act in their own interests, sometimes at the expense of smaller partners. What is being seen in the world today is that past friendships and commitments can be abandoned if a bigger and more powerful country can see an opportunity for itself. The plight of Denmark (Greenland) and Canada (51st state) give disturbing messages. Analysts in the field of International Relations frequently point out that power asymmetries shape outcomes in bilateral relations. As one widely cited observation by Lord Parlmeston, a 19th century prime minister of Great Britain is that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” While this may be an overly stark formulation, it captures an underlying reality that small states must navigate carefully.

For Sri Lanka, this means maintaining a balance. It needs to clearly acknowledge the partnership that India is offering in the area of economic development, as well as in education, connectivity, and technological advancement. India has extended scholarships, supported digital infrastructure, and promoted cross border links that can contribute to Sri Lanka’s long term growth. These are tangible benefits that should not be undervalued. At the same time, Sri Lanka needs to ensure that it does not become overly dependent on Indian largesse or drift into a position where it functions as an appendage of its much larger neighbour. Economic dependence can translate into political vulnerability if not carefully managed. The appropriate response is not to distance itself from India, but to broaden its partnerships. Engaging with a diverse range of countries and institutions can provide Sri Lanka with greater autonomy and resilience.

A hard headed assessment would recognise that India’s support is both genuine and interest driven. India has a clear stake in ensuring that Sri Lanka remains stable, prosperous, and aligned with its broader regional outlook. Sri Lanka needs to move forward with agreed projects such as the Trincomalee oil tanks, improve implementation capacity, and demonstrate reliability as a partner. This does not preclude it from actively seeking investment and cooperation from other partners in Asia and beyond. The path ahead is therefore one of balanced engagement. Sri Lanka can and should welcome India’s partnership while strengthening its own institutions, fulfilling its domestic responsibilities, and diversifying its external relations. This approach can transform a relationship shaped by asymmetry into one defined by mutual benefit and confidence.

by Jehan Perera

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