Midweek Review

Focus on Minister Paulraj’s UK statement

Published

11 months ago

2025/11/5

(L to R) Sri Lankan HC in the UK Nimal Senadheera, Minister Harshana Nanayakkara, Speaker Dr. Jagath Wickramaratne, Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP, Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, Minister Saroja Savithri Paulraj, UK HC in Colombo Andrew Patrick and Assistant Secretary General of Parliament Hansa Abeyratne (pic courtesy Parliament)

Women and Child Affairs Minister Saroja Savithri Paulraj recently proudly declared that the national election wins, secured by the National People’s Power (NPP) last year, transformed the country for the better by elevating all citizens, irrespective of race or religion, as equals before the law enforcers?.

The first Tamil Member of Parliament, elected from the Matara District ever, Paulraj said that the Tamil community greatly feared whether justice would be done if members of the community visited police stations. They were also frightened that the armed forces would treat them differently, the first-time MP, who is also a member of the NPP’s National Executive Committee said, adding that the Tamil community had been also apprehensive whether they would be accepted as citizens of Sri Lanka. However, the NPP’s triumph changed the ground situation.

At the onset of this statement, lawmaker Paulraj said that she must repeat the same in Tamil. The declaration was made at a public gathering in the UK. Among those who had been on stage at that moment were Justice and National Integration Minister Harshana Nanayakkara and Health and Mass Media Minister and Chief Government Whip Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa.

During the second JVP insurgency (1987-1990), anti-subversive operations targeted the Sinhalese. The writer, on many occasions, observed the police and military manning checkpoints leaving out Tamils, Muslims and Sinhala Catholics when buses entering the City were checked. That was the general practice all over the country.

A section of the social media criticised Minister Paulraj over her UK statement. Minister Paulraj had been on a parliamentary delegation, led by Speaker Dr. Jagath Wickramaratne, that undertook a visit to the UK from 26 to 29 October, 2025. The Parliament, in a statement issued after the conclusion of the UK funded visit, declared that the visit was aimed at strengthening inter-parliamentary collaboration, advancing democratic governance, and promoting institutional transparency and accountability.

Paulraj is the President of the UK–Sri Lanka Parliamentary Friendship Association, in addition to being the Chairperson of the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus.

The delegation included Hansa Abeyratne, Assistant Secretary General of Parliament. Minister Paulraj also called for a focused discussion on advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment through parliamentary action with Harriet Harman, UK Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Women and Girls.

British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Andrew Patrick accompanied the delegation. It would be pertinent to ask whether the British HC here asked the Parliament to restrict the delegation to members of the ruling NPP. The JVP-led NPP won a staggering 159 seats, out of 225, at the last parliamentary election.

SJB frontline MP Mujibur Rahman, has questioned the decision to restrict the UK visit to NPP lawmakers. The former UNPer said that if the UK had extended private invitations to a select group of NPPers, Parliament should explain as to why Assistant Secretary General of Parliament Hansa Abeyratne joined the delegation.

Let me examine Minister Paulraj’s recent controversial comments made in the UK, taking into consideration the gradual transformation of the armed forces and police to meet separatist Tamil terrorist threat. Over the years, that threat changed into an unprecedented conventional military challenge. The British conveniently turned a blind eye to LTTE operations, directed from British soil, over several decades, as Sri Lanka struggled to resist the group on the Northern and Eastern battlefields. The UK allowed terrorism to flourish, even after the group assassinated two world leaders Rajiv Gandhi of India, in May 1991, and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa, in May 1993. Both of them played ball with the LTTE at different times and finally paid with their lives.

Minister Paulraj is absolutely right. Tamil people dreaded the police and armed forces as the LTTE consisted of Tamils, men, women and children. The armed forces and police had no option but to take maximum precautions and consider all possibilities as the LTTE infiltrated political parties at all levels and brazenly exploited security loopholes to advance their macabre cause.

The Matara district, represented by Minister Paulraj, experienced LTTE terror on 10 March, 2009, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a religious parade near Godapitiya Jumma mosque, in Akuressa, killing 14 and injuring 35 – all civilians.

Members of the NPP delegation, invited by the UK, couldn’t have been unaware that the man who ‘supervised’ the terror campaign, Anton Balasingham, enjoyed privileged status as a British citizen. The former British HC employee, at its Colombo mission, was married to Adele (she now lives comfortably in the UK), who encouraged the conscription of child ‘soldiers’, including girls, operated there with the full knowledge of successive British governments.

Child soldiers

The Tamil community feared all groups that were sponsored by the LTTE. Velupillai Prabhakaran’s LTTE is definitely not an exception. The group used children as cannon fodder in high intensity battles and even during the Puthumathalan evacuations, Prabhakaran made a desperate bid to forcibly conscript child soldiers. That was during January-May 2009 as ground forces fought their way into a rapidly shrinking area held by the deeply demoralised Tiger units, surrounded by a human shield made up of their own hapless people, many of whom were held against their will.

If the NPP government bothered to peruse the reports made available by the Norway-led Scandinavian truce monitoring mission during February 2002 – January 2008, Minister Paulraj, in her capacity as Women and Child Affairs Minister, could easily understand the gravity of the then situation. The LTTE conscripted children and also deployed women, regardless of consequences. The number of child soldiers and women cadres’ deaths may horrify the Matara district NPP leader.

The LTTE used women suicide cadres as a strategic weapon. As Chairperson of the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus, Minister Paulraj should undertake a comprehensive examination of the use of women in combat and suicide missions. That murderous enterprise continued until a soldier put a bullet through Velupillai Prabhakaran’s head on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon.

At the time the military brought the war to an end in May 2009, the NPP hadn’t been established. Having thrown its weight behind the war effort, at the onset of the Eelam War IV, in 2006, the JVP withdrew its support and finally ended up in a coalition, led by the UNP, that backed retired General Sarath Fonseka’s candidature at the 2010 presidential election. The coalition included the now defunct Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that formally recognised the LTTE/Velupillai Prabhakaran as the sole representatives of the Tamil speaking people. That recognition, granted in 2001, at gun point, remained until the fighting machine disintegrated during a two-year and 10-month long all-out campaign by the security forces to defeat LTTE terrorism.

Lawmaker Paulraj should seriously examine the circumstances of the Tamil community living in all parts of the country, including the Northern and Eastern regions, overwhelmingly voting for Fonseka whose Army eradicated the LTE conventional fighting capacity. The Tamils, particularly those living in former war zones, were the main beneficiaries of the LTTE’s annihilation. Had the LTTE through some jugglery, managed to work out a ceasefire, in May 2009, and save its top leadership, the child conscription may not have ended.

Sri Lanka’s triumph over terrorism ended child conscription. That achievement may not receive the approval of duplicitous and insensitive politicians and political parties but the ordinary Tamil people appreciate that.

During Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s presidency, her government made a strong attempt to halt forcible conscriptions. That effort involved both the UN and the ICRC but the LTTE never kept its promise to discontinue forcible conscription. Regardless of signing an agreement with the international community, the LTTE abducted children, sometimes while they were on their way to school or returning from school.

The LTTE actions never bothered the British, though some Colombo-based diplomats took a different stance. David Tatham, who served as the British HC here during the period 1996 – 1999, perhaps recognised the disruptive role played by the Tamil Diaspora in Sri Lanka. Tatham didn’t mince his words in Jaffna when he declared his opposition to the Tamil Diaspora funding the war here. Tatham made his statement three years after the armed forces brought back the Jaffna peninsula under the government rule.

During a visit to Jaffna, in August 1998, Tatham urged the Tamil community to stop funding the on-going war. Tatham knew the destruction caused by such unlimited funding. The British diplomat took a courageous stand to publicly appeal for an end to Tamil Diaspora funding. The appeal was made at a time the British allowed a free hand to the LTTE on their territory. The Tamil Diaspora received direct orders from the North. They worked at the behest of the LTTE. That ended in May 2009.

The LTTE-Tamil Diaspora adopted a simple strategy. They assured major political parties in Europe of support at parliamentary elections and the arrangement worked perfectly. The LTTE-Tamil Diaspora influenced British parliamentarians to make unsubstantiated allegations. The accusations, directed by various politicians, culminated with the Canadian Parliament formally declaring that Sri Lanka perpetrated genocide against Tamils.

LTTE sets up own ‘police’ unit

The LTTE established a police unit in 1992 and also operated a court system. Unfortunately, interested parties have conveniently forgotten how the LTTE controlled the civilian population living in areas under its control. Before Velupillai Prabhakaran developed the ‘law enforcement’ arm and rapidly expanded it, in the wake of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, the LTTE and other Tamil groups the targeted police.

Paulraj, as the Minister in Charge of Women and Child Affairs, should know how the LTTE strategies brought fear among the Tamil community. Let me remind the Minister of two senseless political killings carried out by the LTTE. The LTTE assassinated Rajani Thiranagama (née Rajasingham), in Jaffna, on 21 September, 1989. This happened during the deployment of the Indian Army in terms of an agreement that had been forced on Sri Lanka. The LTTE ordered her death for being critical of the atrocities perpetrated by them.

At the time of the high profile assassination, Thiranagama served as the head of the Department of Anatomy of the Medical Faculty of the Jaffna University and an active member and one of the founders of the University Teachers for Human Rights, Jaffna. The LTTE assassinated Jaffna Mayor Mrs. Sarojini Yogeswaran on 17 May, 1998, at her Jaffna residence.

Those who continuously find fault with the military, and the police, never condemn the LTTE, or other Tamil groups, for mindless violence unleashed on the Tamil community. Perhaps, a census should be conducted to identify the individual killings carried out by successive governments and Tamil groups.

Sarojini Yogeswaran’s husband former MP, Vettivelu, had been among those politicians killed by the LTTE. Vettivelu and former Opposition Leader and the foremost Tamil leader Appapillai Amirthalingam were killed during the Premadasa-Prabhakaran honeymoon (May 1989 to June 1990). LTTE hitmen killed them on 13 July, 1989, in Colombo. If Amirthalingam had allowed his Sinhala police bodyguards to check all visitors who entered the premises, this heinous crime could have been averted. Unfortunately, Amirthalingam prevented the police from interfering with the secretly arranged meeting because he didn’t want to offend the LTTE. But one Sinhala policeman shot dead all three gunmen. Had they managed to flee, the killings could have been conveniently blamed on the government.

Those who complain of security checks must be reminded of senseless killings. The Fort Railway Station, bombing on 03 February, 2008, killed 12 civilians and injured more than 100. Among the dead were eight schoolchildren of D. S. Senanayake College baseball team and their coach/teacher-in-charge.

JD before LLRC

Have we ever heard of apologists for Tigers demanding justice for those who had been killed by the LTTE? Never. The civil society never takes up killings carried out by the LTTE. Can there be a rational explanation for the assassination of Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam, PC, on 29 July, 1999.

At the time of his assassination, the legal scholar served as a National List member of Parliament and was the Director of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies.

Who empowered the LTTE? The LTTE thrived on support extended by foreign governments. The British allowed a free hand to the LTTE operation, though the group was banned there, only in 2001, under the Terrorism Act 2000, and subsequent regulations making it a criminal offence to be a member of, or support, the group in the UK. But the group was allowed to continue and law enforcement authorities turned a blind eye to the display of LTTE flags. The displaying of LTTE flags, perhaps, is the least of the illegal acts perpetrated by the group.

One of Sri Lanka’s celebrated career diplomats, the late Jayantha Dhanapala, explained the issue of accountability when he addressed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), headed by one-time Attorney General, the late C. R. de Silva, on 25 August, 2010. The writer was present there on that occasion.

Dhanapala, in his submissions, said: “Now I think it is important for us to expand that concept to bring in the culpability of those members of the international community who have subscribed to the situation that has caused injury to the civilians of a nation. I talk about the way in which terrorist groups are given sanctuary; harboured; and supplied with arms and training by some countries with regard to their neighbours or with regard to other countries. We know that in our case this has happened, and I don’t want to name countries, but even countries which have allowed their financial procedures and systems to be abused in such a way that money can flow from their countries in order to buy arms and ammunition that cause deaths, maiming and destruction of property in Sri Lanka are to blame and there is therefore a responsibility to protect our civilians and the civilians of other nations from that kind of behaviour on the part of members of the international community. And I think this is something that will echo within many countries in the Non-Aligned Movement, where Sri Lanka has a much respected position and where I hope we will be able to raise this issue.”

Dhanapala also stressed on the accountability on the part of Western governments, which conveniently turned a blind eye to massive fundraising operations in their countries, in support of the LTTE operations. It is no secret that the LTTE would never have been able to emerge as a conventional fighting force without having the wherewithal abroad, mainly in the Western countries, to procure arms, ammunition and equipment. But, the government never acted on Dhanapala’s advice.

The UK, in March this year, imposed sanctions on former Chief of Staff of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces, Shavendra Silva, former Commander of the Navy Wasantha Karannagoda and former Commander of the Army Jagath Jayasuriya, as well as Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, known as Karuna Amman formerly of the LTTE. Sri Lanka never had the courage to point out how the UK allowed the LTTE to build conventional military capacity.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

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Midweek Review

A ‘partnership’ like no other!

Published

14 hours 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

14 hours 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)