Features

Healing the nation – A question of leadership

Published

4 years ago

2023/01/1

Thilina Walpola

Deshamanya Dr P.R. Anthonis Memorial Oration

by Dr Nihal Jayawickrama

I am deeply honoured by the invitation of the Lanka-Japan Friendship Society to deliver the Deshamanya Dr P.R. Anthonis Memorial Lecture this evening. I was intrigued by the subject that was assigned to me, since a surgeon’s approach to healing a patient is usually to cut and remove a part of his or her anatomy. I wondered whether I was expected to advocate the same approach to healing the nation.

Coming, as I do, from a family of lawyers, with only one doctor of medicine produced in several generations, it was my brother who knew and worked with Dr Anthonis over many years. Dr Anthonis was one of a small group of brilliant surgeons of the 20th century that included Dr Noel Bartholomeusz and Dr M.V.P. Peries. I have had the good fortune never to have been subjected to Dr Anthonis’s scalpel, but I have had the privilege of meeting him socially, and he always treated me with the utmost kindness. To the memory of that remarkable surgeon, I dedicate my own thoughts on the subject I propose to address, with respect and affection.

‘Healing the Nation – A question of leadership’ immediately raises the question: what is expected of a political leader in a democratic society? Should the leader reflect the views, the fears and the prejudices of the electorate to which he has to return for re-election; or should he determine a path according to his own vision, his own values and his own judgment, and endeavour to lead his electorate along that path? President Jayewardene ruminated on this issue some years after he had left office and wondered how long one could go along with the wishes of the electorate.

A military leader does not have to worry about that, but a democratic leader must because the electors are his main and only support. It was difficult to be re-elected unless the leader continued to enjoy the support of those who had placed him in that position. However, he was willing to make an exception in regard to economic matters where external factors often determined what could or could not be done, however much that might displease the electorate. Incidentally, he had some sound advice for those aspiring to be leaders. Politics, he said, was a “stayers’ race”; a race where a man or woman who does not try to kick his neighbour or jump over him, but stays on till all the others disappear, wins the race. Therefore, he advised aspirants for political leadership that good health was vital: “look after your kidney, nurse your heart, eat little, don’t exercise too much, and in the end, you win the stayer’s race and you become the leader”.

Not being a politician, and not intending to be one at this stage of my life, I am free to disagree with President Jayewardene. I believe that a leader must possess a vision that he pursues with wisdom and integrity, and it is his responsibility to convince his electorate that he is on the right path. At the height of the American civil war, when things were not going well for the North, Abraham Lincoln was advised that he might need to compromise on slavery. Lincoln held firm on the issue of abolition. More recently, Nelson Mandela’s decision to be magnanimous in victory must have enraged tens of thousands of black Africans who had been subjected to oppression and brutality at the hands of the previous white apartheid regime. Yet, both Lincoln and Mandela achieved peace in their respective countries. That, in my view, was the result of leadership.

To establish the parameters for my presentation, I need to define the expression “healing the nation”. To heal is to mend, to reconcile, to rectify, or to restore. It presupposes that the nation is wounded, hurt, or broken. In this context, “the nation” must mean Ceylon or Sri Lanka. However, about a 100 years ago, Anagarika Dharmapala began writing aggressively of the “Sinhala nation”, and in course of time “Sinhala” became the equivalent of “jathiya” or “Lankika”. In 1944, the Communist Party made the first reference to the “Tamil nation”, a term that was finally affirmed in the Vaddukoddai Resolution of 1976.

In the contemporary world, this is not a matter for any real concern. For over several centuries “English” was synonymous with “British”, but today, the nation known as “Great Britain” comprises at least three nations: the English nation, the Scottish nation, and the Welsh nation. Each has a distinct language, religion and a proud culture. Scotland and Wales have their own legislative assemblies and are represented in Westminster in both the Parliament and the Cabinet. Together with Northern Ireland, these three nations constitute the United Kingdom. Similarly, the nation of Sri Lanka includes the Sinhala nation and the Tamil nation and several other communities, and it is to the break-up of that nation that I now turn.

THE BREAK-UP OF THE NATION

When did the break-up of the Sri Lankan nation occur? I would submit that it was not a single event, but a series of events that led to the nation being wounded, hurt or broken. In the first quarter of the 20th century, all the different ethnic communities stood together as Ceylonese in agitating for constitutional reform. However, with the introduction in 1931 of universal adult franchise, and with impending self-government, it was natural that minority communities would become apprehensive of majority rule. There was cause for this. The Sinhala Maha Sabha, established by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike in 1937, was already engaged in creating a national consciousness among the Sinhalese. Meanwhile, following the election of the second State Council in 1936, the Sinhalese members, together with the European members, succeeded in electing a Board of Ministers that was exclusively Sinhalese – the so-called “Pan-Sinhalese Board of Ministers”.

The 1946 Constitution

The fears of the minority communities were set at rest by the Soulbury Commission which recommended the inclusion in the constitution of a package of safeguards. These were:Multi-member constituencies in those areas in which a substantial racial or religious minority lived.Six nominated members of the House of Representatives to represent any inadequately represented interests.

The Senate, which would serve the minorities as an instrument for impeding precipitate legislation, as well as a forum for handling inflammatory issues in a cooler atmosphere.An independent Public Service Commission which would guarantee strict impartiality in public appointments.A prohibition on Parliament from enacting any law which seeks to make persons of any community or religion liable to disabilities or restrictions to which persons of other communities or religions were not made liable, or to confer on persons of any community or religion any privilege or advantage which was not conferred on persons of other communities or religions.

The Privy Council observed that these safeguards in the 1946 Constitution represented “the solemn balance of rights between the citizens of Sri Lanka, the fundamental conditions on which they accepted the Constitution; and these are therefore unalterable”.

At the conclusion of the first general election of October 1947, D.S. Senanayake, the leader of the newly formed United National Party which secured 42 of the 95 seats, formed a 14-member Cabinet in which he included two independent Tamils elected from the northern province: C. Sittampalam from Mannar, and C. Suntheralingam from Vavuniya, and one Malay, T.B. Jayah, from Colombo. Was the formation of this multi-ethnic Cabinet an act of leadership on the part of D.S. Senanayake, designed to consolidate the multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-linguistic nation of Ceylon? Or was it an act of political expediency to convince the British Government that the fear that the minorities entertained of majority rule no longer existed, and that Ceylon was ready and equipped for independence? I am inclined to the view that Senanayake, during whose tenure our national flag was designed and adopted, and who steered clear of language and religious issues, truly desired to maintain the equilibrium of a multi-ethnic state.

On February 10, 1948, Sir Oliver Goonetilleke, presenting an Address of Thanks on behalf of the Senate to the Duke of Gloucester who had opened the first Parliament of Independent Ceylon, exclaimed:

“We are of many races – Europeans, Indians, Burghers, Malays, Moors, Tamils, and Sinhalese. We are of different religions – Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists. We have majorities and minorities. We have, however, been in the past, and we shall be in the future, one nation”.

As a 10-year-old Royal College scout “on duty” outside the specially constructed Assembly Hall, and where the Independence Hall now stands, I was present and saw and heard Sir Oliver express that optimistic hope, although I may not have understood much of what he said.

However, on that February day, I returned home and did two things. I made a replica of the Assembly Hall using cardboard strips and colourful chocolate paper as a substitute for the ralipallan. I also began maintaining scrap books in which I pasted the newspaper reports of that event, and thereafter of all the significant events in the country, including the regular Miss Ceylon contests.

Unfortunately, in that “one nation”, the critical events that followed Independence were often determined by political expediency. This was in sharp contrast to the policies of Lee Kuan Yew who created one of Asia’s most peaceful and prosperous nations out of what he described as “a polyglot collection of migrants from China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and several other parts of Asia”. In barely 30 years, Sri Lanka’s political leaders caused the disintegration of a nation which at Independence had solid foundations of freedom, perhaps more than any other British colony.

Citizenship and Franchise

The new nation’s first target was 211,915 registered Indian Tamil voters. As British subjects who had been continuously resident in Ceylon for at least five years, they were eligible to vote. At the 1947 general election, apart from electing seven candidates of the Ceylon Indian Congress, they had helped to secure the victory of 15 1eft-wing opposition candidates as well. It became a matter of priority for the Government to disenfranchise the Indian Tamil population. Accordingly, Parliament enacted a package of laws which had a profoundly debilitating effect on that community.

The Citizenship Act 1948 established the principle of citizenship by descent, and not by birth, by requiring proof of birth in Ceylon of one’s father, or paternal grandfather and great-grandfather. It thereby deprived the plantation Tamils, 12 per cent or an eighth of the country’s population, of their citizenship. The Indian and Pakistani Residents (Citizenship) Act 1949 made it virtually impossible for them to obtain citizenship by registration since it required proof of uninterrupted residence in Ceylon in the previous 13 years. The Ceylon Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Act 1949 deprived those who were not citizens of their right to vote, thereby ensuring that by the time of the next general election of 1952, the number of Indian Tamil voters in the seven plantation area constituencies was reduced from 162,212 to a mere 3,191. It became impossible for that community to secure even a single seat in Parliament.

Did the Citizenship Act discriminate against the Indian Tamil community? In my view it did. However, when section 29 of the Constitution was invoked, both the Supreme Court and the Privy Council retreated. In what bore the stamp of classic political judgments they upheld the Act on the ground that it was “a perfectly natural and legitimate function of the legislature to determine the composition of its nationals.” While that may well be so, our Constitution provided that in performing that function, Parliament must not discriminate against a particular community already resident in the country. A million people were thereby rendered stateless.

The problems created by the presence of the Indian Tamils were, of course, sensitive and emotional. Even almost 30 years later, Hector Kobbekaduwa would exclaim, with reference to the 1947 general election:

With universal franchise, the constitution makers thought that the inarticulate peasantry should have their own representatives. But unfortunately, in the hill country, the change was from clay to fire. The Peri Sunderams, the Vythialingams, Natesa Iyers and Fellows-Gordons, and later the Thondamans and Jesudasans and other political adventurers, were swept into power in our areas through the Indian votes. It was a hopeless situation for us. We screamed for justice.

Marginalizing the Tamil community

The substantial disintegration of the nation, however, occurred with a series of politically expedient measures taken by successive governments which were directed at, or had the effect of, marginalizing the Tamil community. These were political decisions that were thought to appeal to the majority of the Sinhalese electorate who believed, as the Mahawamsa claims, that the passing away of the Buddha synchronized with the founding of the Sinhala race; that Sri Lanka was a “Dhamma-dweepa”, a nation brought into being for the specific purpose of keeping alive the message of the Buddha; and had for centuries harboured a historical, yet often dormant, grievance against the Tamils for having settled in a part of this “Dhamma-dweepa”.

One of the earliest of such measures were the government initiated and funded colonization schemes, which at the time appeared to be both timely and desirable. However, they resulted in Sinhalese families from the south being settled in the sparsely populated dry zone in the eastern, north-central and northern provinces. This was viewed by the Tamil community as a diabolical attempt to dilute the Tamil presence and seriously alter the ethnic composition in those provinces. It was argued by Tamil politicians that the government should have first invited the people of the provinces where lands were being distributed to come forward as recipients. Thereafter, people from the other areas would have had their share if there was sufficient land to distribute. This policy, which altered the demographical pattern that existed at the time of Independence, was to lead to violent ethnic conflicts in the colonized areas in later years.

The division of the Sinhalese from the Tamils, commencing at a very young age, began with the implementation of the policy to replace English with Sinhala and Tamil as the medium of instruction in schools. I was fortunate to have entered the primary school before this policy was introduced, and to have had the opportunity to go through school life in the company of fellow students from all the communities and to understand and appreciate their cultures, their strengths, their weaknesses, and their idiosyncrasies. To segregate children from a very young age based on their language was to ensure a permanent division between the two communities through life, with little or no opportunity to interact and understand each other.

That division was compounded when the SLFP and the UNP changed their language policies to that of Sinhala Only as the official language, repudiating one important element of the 1946 constitutional settlement on the basis of which the minorities had agreed to subject themselves to majority rule. For generations, the government clerical service had been a popular outlet for the educated Tamil youth who did not aspire to a university education but sought a habitation and a source of income away from the arid soil of his northern home. He or she was now required to qualify in Sinhala to enter, and thereafter to progress in, the public service.

Between 1977 and 1981, Tamils secured only 4.9 per cent of the vacancies in the government clerical service as against 93.6 per cent for the Sinhalese. The plight they now faced became evident from the case of Kodeeswaran, a Tamil who had been appointed to the General Clerical Service in 1952. He had successfully moved up the salary scale from Rs.1600 to Rs.3780 per annum by regularly passing proficiency tests in Tamil. In 1962, he was denied his increment because he did not present himself for the proficiency test which was now conducted in Sinhala. Many hundreds of Tamil public servants almost certainly found themselves in the same predicament as Kodeeswaran.Kodeeswaran challenged the Official Language Act in the District Court of Colombo. Mr O.L.de Kretser, District Judge, in a carefully considered judgment observed that:

If the members of each community were able to speak, read and write the language of each of the other communities, then it is obvious that the selection of the language of one community as the Official Language could not cause any handicap to the members of the communities whose language was not chosen, however much they resented the fact that their own language was not given pride of place. But every community in Ceylon is not literate in the language of the other communities, and the selection of the language of one community must cause at least inconvenience, if not disability, to the communities who are not literate in that language.

While observing that it was a legitimate function for Parliament to decide in what language official business should be carried on, he concluded that the Act nevertheless gave advantage to one community which the other did not have. Accordingly, he held the Official Language Act to be an infringement of section 29 of the Constitution, and therefore void. Once more, the Supreme Court retreated. Chief Justice H.N.G. Fernando avoided the substantive issue and held instead that a public servant in Ceylon had no right to sue the Crown for the recovery of his wages. On appeal to the Privy Council, the Chief Justice’s judgment was declared to be wrong, and the case was returned to the Supreme Court to address the substantive issue. For some inexplicable reason, the appeal was not listed for hearing until the Official Language Act was incorporated in the 1972 Constitution.

The 1972 Constitution marked the crucial decisive stage in the disintegration of the nation. The 1946 constitutional settlement was unilaterally abrogated. The Senate, the nominated members in the House of Representatives, the Public Service Commission, and the section 29 prohibition of discriminatory legislation were all omitted in the new Constitution, along with the judicial review of legislation. Sinhala was granted constitutional status, and Tamil was described as the language of translation. The issue of federalism was not even allowed to be raised. The Federal Party withdrew from the Constituent Assembly because they believed that they were unable to influence in any effective manner the course of its proceedings.

The most untimely introduction in the 1970s of a policy of standardization in respect of university admission was perhaps the final straw. Intended to secure a more equitable distribution, language and district-wise, of the limited number of places available in universities, it resulted in a large number of Tamil students being denied admission to the universities. The effect of this policy, and the enormity of the injustice it caused to the Tamil community, raised this issue to the level of a major human rights problem.

For instance, in 1975, the admissions on a district basis into the medical faculty were 29 from Galle and 29 from Jaffna, whereas on the basis of merit only 18 had qualified from Galle as against 61 from Jaffna. Similarly, on a district basis, Galle and Jaffna each secured 20 places in the science and engineering faculties, while on the basis of merit, 24 should have entered from Galle and 56 from Jaffna. Nothing could have been more frustrating to the educated Tamil youth than his inability to enter the stream of higher education owing to standardization and be diverted away from the mainstream of life in the country. This feeling of despair and non-fulfilment contributed immensely to the emergence of a militant youth movement. The drift to separation was now both rapid and intense, and accompanied by increasing violence. On 27 July 1975, masked gunmen shot and killed 48-year-old Alfred Duraiyappah, the SLFP Mayor of Jaffna.

The Vaddukkodai Declaration

One year later, at Vaddukkodai, on 14th May 1976, the Tamil United Front, together with the Muslim United Front, declared that:

The Tamils of Ceylon, by virtue of their great language, their religion, their separate culture and heritage, their history of independent existence as a separate state over a distinct territory for several centuries until they were conquered by the armed might of the European invaders, and above all, by their will to exist as a separate entity ruling themselves in their own territory, are a nation distinct and apart from the Sinhalese.

It was indeed ironic that Dr Colvin R. de Silva, the architect of the Constitution that abrogated the 1947 constitutional settlement, should have anticipated that this would happen. Addressing Parliament twenty years earlier this is what he predicted:

Do we, does this House, do our people want two nations? Do we want a single State, or do we want two? Do we want one Ceylon, or do we want two? And above all, do we want an independent Ceylon which must necessarily be a united and single Ceylon, or two bleeding halves of Ceylon which can be gobbled up by every ravaging imperialist monster that may happen to range the Indian Ocean? If we come to the stage where, instead of parity, we, through needless insularity, get into the position of suppressing the Tamil people from the federal demand which seems to be popular amongst them at present – if we are to judge by electoral results – there may emerge separatism.

(To be continued next week)
(This is a slightly condensed version of a speech delivered in Colombo in May 2016)

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Features

Beyond traditional jobs: Why Sri Lanka needs to facilitate the gig economy

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Image courtesy Oxford University

by Kapila Chinthaka Premarathne
Head of the Department of Agricultural Systems and a Senior Lecturer in Agricultural Economics at the Faculty of Agriculture,
Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Beyond the Graduate Unemployment Number

Sri Lanka’s economic recovery has improved macroeconomic stability, but youth unemployment remains a significant labour-market concern. Around 43% of Sri Lankan youth aged 15–24 with postsecondary education are unemployed, the highest among the Asian economies compared in the IMF analysis, compared with about 36% in Bangladesh and 13.2% in Thailand. This reflects a problem of skills mismatches and the difficulty of connecting higher education with changing labour-market demand. The concern goes beyond unemployment itself. Sri Lanka has invested heavily in educating its younger population, yet the conventional labour market is not creating enough opportunities to convert these qualifications into income. Many young people possess degrees, technical knowledge and growing digital familiarity, but remain outside formal employment because suitable jobs may not exist in the right place, at the right time or under conditions compatible with their circumstances. This makes it necessary to think beyond traditional employment models and explore new ways of connecting Sri Lanka’s educated youth with economic opportunities.

This is where Sri Lanka needs to reconsider how it understands employment

Employment has traditionally been viewed through the employer–employee relationship, with qualifications leading to a formal job and regular salary. While this model remains important, digital platforms are creating new ways to generate income, allowing individuals to work for multiple clients across geographical boundaries without permanent employment. Sri Lanka therefore needs to look beyond simply creating conventional jobs and consider whether it is building the conditions for its educated population to participate in the growing global market for digital services.

The Opportunity of the Gig Economy

The gig economy extends far beyond ride-hailing and delivery services. Digital platforms increasingly connect skilled individuals with opportunities in software development, design, accounting, data analysis, digital marketing, translation, online education, research and consultancy. This is particularly relevant to Sri Lanka, where a highly educated population faces a relatively limited domestic market for specialised skills. Digital platforms can overcome geographical constraints by connecting Sri Lankan workers directly with international clients.

As highlighted in my previous LSE South Asia article on women and the gig economy, such work should not replace formal employment but can create additional income opportunities when supported by appropriate skills, digital infrastructure, training and institutional support. A skilled person in Anuradhapura, Jaffna, Batticaloa or Monaragala could potentially serve clients in London, Melbourne or Dubai without first relocating to Colombo. This makes the gig economy relevant not only to employment but also to Sri Lanka’s emerging digital services-export strategy.

A Digitally Familiar Generation

Sri Lanka’s younger generation is growing up with smartphones, social media, online learning, digital applications and digital financial services, giving them a level of digital familiarity that previous generations did not have. However, digital familiarity does not automatically translate into digital employability. The challenge is to transform everyday digital use into productive skills such as data analysis, artificial intelligence, software development, digital marketing, financial analysis and online professional services.

Sri Lanka therefore needs to move young people from being consumers of digital services to producers of digital value. Universities, vocational institutions and training providers can play an important role in converting existing digital familiarity into marketable skills that connect young people with both domestic and international opportunities. This is increasingly important as technological change and AI reshape labour markets and intensify the need for skills that match emerging forms of work.

The Gender Dimension

The gig economy may be particularly relevant to women, who often face barriers to conventional employment arising from childcare, eldercare, mobility, social expectations and rigid working arrangements. For mothers and women living outside major urban centres, fixed working hours and daily commuting can make formal employment difficult even when suitable jobs exist.

Digital gig work can provide greater flexibility, allowing women to undertake professional assignments from home or their communities and potentially serve international clients without relocating. As discussed in my earlier LSE South Asia article, this opportunity is most meaningful when supported by digital infrastructure, skills training, virtual work hubs, mentorship and appropriate institutional support. However, flexibility should expand women’s economic choices rather than simply add paid work to existing unpaid household responsibilities.

Pressure on Labour-Market Opportunity

The value of a job cannot be judged by salary alone, as commuting, working hours and household responsibilities can significantly affect its real economic value. Flexible digital work can potentially reduce some of these costs by allowing people to work from home or nearby digital hubs and participate in employment on a part-time or project basis. While gig work cannot solve all household pressures, a more flexible organisation of work can create additional employment opportunities while helping households manage their limited time and resources more effectively.

A Possible Third Option Between Unemployment and Migration

Sri Lanka’s migration and brain-drain concerns highlight the need to explore employment opportunities beyond the domestic labour market. While overseas migration will remain an important individual and economic choice, digital work can provide another pathway by allowing skilled Sri Lankans to serve international clients without physically leaving the country. Software developers, designers, analysts, researchers, translators and consultants can potentially earn from global markets while remaining in Sri Lanka. Digital gig work cannot eliminate migration or reverse brain drain, but it can create an additional option between domestic unemployment and physical migration—working for the world while remaining in Sri Lanka.

Recognising and Making Digital Work Reputable

A major institutional gap is that conventional systems are designed around salaried employment, while a freelancer may earn from multiple clients without a single employer or salary certificate. This can make legitimate digital workers difficult to recognise when they seek loans, leasing, insurance or business finance. Sri Lanka could address this through a voluntary digital-worker or independent-professional registration mechanism, providing a recognised economic identity based on qualifications, verified skills, platform activity and documented income, without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.

Such recognition should also make digital income bankable. Banks could assess verified platform earnings, bank transactions, contracts, invoices, tax records, savings and repayment history alongside conventional employment documents. A standardised digital income statement could further help workers demonstrate their financial capacity. The key shift is from asking “Who is your employer?” to asking “Can your income be verified and is it sufficiently stable?”. This would allow successful digital workers to build financial credibility and use their earnings to access credit, acquire assets and develop their own businesses.

Digital Payments Are Part of the Labour Market

Access to reliable international payment systems is essential if Sri Lankans are to participate effectively in the global digital economy. Recent developments in PayPal’s local banking arrangements, including its partnerships with Sampath Bank and Commercial Bank, indicate progress in this direction. However, the broader priority should be a regulated and efficient digital-payment ecosystem that allows workers to receive international earnings, transfer them to Sri Lankan bank accounts, document their income and meet relevant financial and tax requirements with minimal friction. International payment infrastructure is therefore not simply a technology issue; it is an essential component of Sri Lanka’s emerging services-export economy.

Building Infrastructure Outside Colombo

Digital familiarity alone is insufficient without reliable internet, electricity, computers, software and suitable working environments, particularly in rural and underserved areas. To ensure that the gig economy supports regional development rather than becoming another Colombo-centred opportunity, Sri Lanka could establish regional digital-work hubs through universities, vocational institutions, libraries and public-private partnerships. These hubs could provide connectivity, equipment, training, mentoring and assistance with platform registration and international payments. If graduates must migrate to Colombo simply to access such infrastructure, the geographical advantage of digital work is significantly reduced.

From Freelancer to Entrepreneur

Gig work should not be viewed as an end in itself. A person may begin with small online assignments, develop regular clients and professional credibility, and eventually establish a small digital enterprise. This creates a potential pathway from graduate to freelancer, professional service provider and entrepreneur, allowing individuals to create markets around their own skills rather than waiting for conventional vacancies. Universities can support this transition by teaching students not only subject knowledge but also portfolio development, market identification, client communication, digital platforms and contract management. A degree demonstrates educational attainment, while a professional portfolio demonstrates what a graduate can offer to the market.

Facilitation Must Be Matched by Protection

Promoting the gig economy without appropriate safeguards could simply transfer employment risks from institutions to individuals. Digital workers may face uncertain incomes, weak bargaining power and limited social protection. Sri Lanka should therefore facilitate digital work while also ensuring opportunities for independent workers to build savings, access insurance and participate in portable social-protection mechanisms. Flexibility should create greater economic choice without compromising long-term financial security, particularly for women.

A regional Example from India: Think Globally and act Locally

India provides a useful regional example of how the gig economy can be approached as a policy issue rather than simply as informal or temporary work. NITI Aayog has estimated the size and future employment potential of India’s gig and platform economy and has developed recommendations covering employment generation, skills, financial inclusion and social protection. More importantly, India has begun creating institutional mechanisms around these workers. Its e-Shram portal provides a national database of unorganised workers, including gig and platform workers, creating a recognised identity through which workers can potentially access employment, skills development and social-security services. India has also explored platform-led skills development through skill certificates, skill passports and on-the-job training, while NITI Aayog has proposed cash-flow-based lending models that could allow platform workers to demonstrate creditworthiness through their earnings rather than conventional employment or collateral.

Social protection has also entered the policy framework. India’s Code on Social Security, 2020 formally recognises gig and platform workers and provides a basis for schemes covering areas such as accident insurance, health, maternity, disability and old-age protection. India is still developing and refining these arrangements, and Sri Lanka need not replicate the Indian model.

However, the experience demonstrates an important policy lesson: the gig economy can be supported through a system that identifies workers, develops their skills, makes their income more visible to financial institutions and extends appropriate social protection. Sri Lanka could develop its own simpler framework suited to its smaller economy, beginning with recognising digital workers and building the institutional conditions that allow their skills and earnings to become part of the formal economy.

Rethinking Employment and the Next Opportunity

The 43 percent figure for educated young Sri Lankans should encourage a wider discussion about the changing nature of work. Sri Lanka will continue to need conventional employment through firms, industries, farms, professional organisations and public institutions, but the changing labour market also requires new opportunities to connect educated Sri Lankans with global digital markets. The gig economy can provide an additional pathway to increase female labour-force participation, reduce the pressure for migration and brain drain, and connect Sri Lankan skills with markets beyond geographical boundaries.

This does not require a complicated bureaucracy. It requires recognising legitimate digital workers, facilitating access to international platforms and payment systems, allowing verified digital income to support credit assessment, developing portable social protection, and strengthening digital infrastructure and skills beyond major urban centres. Better data on digital workers would also help policymakers develop evidence-based interventions.

The future of work is therefore not only about creating more jobs, but about creating more ways for Sri Lankans to work, earn and build livelihoods while continuing to live and contribute in Sri Lanka. The gig economy should be recognised as part of an emerging digital labour market and services-export economy, where workers can build professional identities, earn internationally, access finance and eventually develop their own enterprises.

Features

Are religions getting redundant in the modern world?

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

by Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

We are living in an era of astonishingly rapid scientific advancement. From the time Apple launched the ‘iPhone’ in January 2007, the first targeting the mass market, smartphones have taken over the world, making them indispensable. According to the latest statistics, there are around 8.1 billion mobile phones with 7.4 billion active smartphones, for the world population of 8.25 billion. Except for a tiny minority of the very poor, most people have at least one smartphone.

We are now entering the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and smart robots. Recently, a ‘Chinese’ robot ran 100 metres faster than Usain Bolt! Though Alan Turing proposed the idea of ‘Thinking Machines’ way back in 1950, the real AI boom commenced with the release of the generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT, by OpenAI in November 2020. Number of technology firms in the US as well as in China have joined the race, China catching up very fast, quite unexpectedly. There is a frenzy at the moment, raising expectations, as the imminent floating of these companies is likely to value the two leaders, OpenAI and Anthropic, trillion dollars each!

However, trouble is brewing in the AI field. On top of the concerns raised by environmentalists regarding the huge power drain by AI centres, there are recent reports of some AI models hacking independently into other systems, without human input. Worse still, a senior researcher at Anthropic, who has previously worked for OpenAI as well, resigned in early September on ethical grounds stating that the way the two companies are fast-tracking AI poses an existential threat to humanity. Surprisingly, instead of a rebuttal the head of Anthropic supported his view, soon joined by three more heads of leading AI developers. Whilst they agreed on slowing progress, President Trump has claimed that slowing is totally unnecessary as long as a super intelligent President like himself is at the helm! There does not seem to be an end to Trump’s grandiosity! He was joined by Tony Blair. In contrast, King Charles held a summit with representatives of all AI developers to find a way AI could be developed without a threat to humanity. That is how wise leaders act!

Less sophisticated AI tools are already in widespread use and installed in computers, laptops and smartphones. Some of us are using these automatically. However, the more advanced AI tools like ChatGPT can change even reality. For instance, AI can generate videos hardly distinguishable from real ones. What you enjoy watching on YouTube may be just the creations of AI! Some people use AI to write articles; only a few of them admit that they do so. Very soon we may be reading stories AI creates and listening to music, courtesy of AI. Technology seems to be fast becoming the new religion? Or, will the existential threat move us more towards religion?

Religion, perhaps, is as old as humanity itself; various belief systems evolving and disappearing coupled with the fortunes of the associated civilizations. Just like AI, religion is also a creation of the human mind which our ancestors did to explain many phenomena which appeared, at that time, to be supernatural. Starting with Animism, perceiving the divine in the natural world around, humans went on to Polytheism, believing in many gods like in Hinduism, culminating in the concept of Monotheism.

World’s oldest religion, Hinduism, still in wide practice, is devoid of a founder or a single text. The earliest scriptures, Rigveda, is considered to be around 3,500 years old but archaeologists have discovered symbols of importance to Hinduism as far back as 7,000 BCE. Though it is considered to be Polytheistic, it can be argued that it was the precursor of Monotheism, the concept of a creator God, as Brahma was the creator in the triad, Trimurti, Vishnu being the preserver and Shiva being the destroyer. It seems to be a sensible balancing act; create, destroy and repair with improvements.

It is pretty obvious that as science expands, the importance of religion contracts but it is hardly likely religions would be totally redundant. We have no choice as to which family we are born to and that invariably determines what your religion would be, if any. Religion is the first brainwashing a child encounters and most remain in the same faith, often trying to defend even the indefensible, but some change through conviction or conversion due to one of many reasons. Further, religious rituals have social values and religious practices often come to one’s solace at times of distress. Therefore, many will continue with the religion they were born to but with declining enthusiasm, at times. However, some religions seem to be facing problems like falling attendances in places of worship. With education and tech savviness expanding, one would expect the youth to be less enthusiastic about religion but the converse is true in some religions, some youth becoming very militant unfortunately.

While most religions make you subservient to a supernatural power, the Buddha was wise and bold enough to remove those shackles. He proclaimed that one’s destiny is in one’s own hands. However, many Buddhists appear to attach greater significance to rituals than to practising the Dhamma.

Buddhism as a religion may become less relevant as the frontiers of science expands but the Buddha Dhamma, especially Abhidhamma and Vipassana, would receive increasing recognition, the Buddha remaining an authority on consciousness and the mind.

Scientific progress should be for the betterment of society but AI developers are taking huge risks, taking massive loans threatening the world economy, for one aim: profit! Some do not seem to care even if their actions pose an existential threat to humanity.

Perhaps, if the Four Sublime Attitudes (Sathara Brahma Vihara) expounded by the Buddha; loving kindness (Metta), compassion (Karuna), empathetic joy (Muditha) and equanimity (Upekkha) are adopted as universal values, the world would become a safer place to live in, with or without AI.

Features

‘The Bullet that Missed’

Published

2 days ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 21

by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

Another book that is part of a series, today—one that is fun without the brooding concentration on criminality in different forms that marks the Rebus novels. This one about the Thursday Murder Club, is a romp as its two predecessors were interspersed with deaths and what might be deaths.

The Bullet that Missed

begins with a meeting with the presenter of ‘South East Tonight’, a programme about the area, in which Coopers Chase is situated. The meeting is held because the club has decided to look into the murder of the producer’s assistant, Bethany Waites, whose car was found at the bottom of a cliff ten years ago. There was blood in it, but the body was never found.

Or, rather, the book begins with an account of Bethany Waites deciding, on the night she vanished, to meet someone in connection with a case of massive fraud that she had been investigating, after sending the producer, Mike Waghorn, a message that she had found new evidence though he had no idea what it was. The night she died, she sent him another message: “I don’t say this often enough, but thank you.”

CCTV cameras showed her leaving her place, but then the vehicle vanished, before being sighted near the cliff, with two people in it. Investigation of the fraud had led to the imprisonment of a woman, Heather Garbutt, though it proved impossible to pin anything on Jack Mason, the mastermind for whom she had worked.

The Club conducts investigations on several fronts, including through Connie Johnson, the drug dealer they had helped imprison in the earlier book. The psychiatrist Ibrahim, the most respectable member of the Club, interviews her in an attempt to get her to find out more from Heather, who is in the same prison as she. They also investigate the CCTV record of the night Bethany vanished, and deduce that she went to an apartment block and exited from its other side, and that is why she was not seen leaving the town. But some time had elapsed between her being seen in the town and then on the cliff.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth has been kidnapped, along with her husband, and taken to a house in Staffordshire, where she is told by a man called the Viking that she must kill a former KGB agent now in London, who has a profitable career in money laundering. The Viking tells her he will inform Viktor that she was responsible for stealing the diamonds, the story of which is told in the previous Murder Club Mystery, and Viktor will then kill her.

Elizabeth, who has an affair with Viktor, knows he will not kill her, but when the Viking says he will also send Viktor a picture of Joyce, she decides she must act, and goes to see Viktor, and fires when she gets him in the bathroom. But, of course, she fired into the ceiling, and Viktor is then taken to Coopers Chase, to stay with Joyce until they have dealt with the Viking. And Viktor then enjoys the camaraderie of the retirement home so much that he wonders whether he too should settle there.

Elizabeth does trace the Viking, or rather her husband does, for he has noticed rare books on the shelves in his library, and an antiquarian book dealer friend managed to find out who bought them. But before they could confront him, he comes to Coopers Chase, for he has seen the bullet hole in the bathroom of Viktor’s flat and realized he was fooled.

But he cannot bring himself to kill Joyce straight away, and she knocks him out with a drug in a cup of tea. When he meets Viktor, they both decide to fall in with the plans of the Club.

Before this, Heather has been found dead in her cell, with a note saying that ‘they’ were going to kill her, and only Connie could help. Before that she had admitted that she was frightened to name the man behind the fraud. Jack Mason said the same, after Ron had won his confidence. The Club had deduced by then that the body was buried in the garden of Heather’s house which Jack had bought, after she had been jailed, and digging reveals a gun and money, but no body. Jack tells them that the mastermind had said that Bethany was buried with a bullet with his DNA on it.

The Club is now working with the Chief Constable of Kent, Andrew Everton, who writes thrillers himself, but in the form of e-books. He is in search of a publisher, and delighted when Mike Waghorn puts him on his programme, as is Donna, who is substituted at the last minute for Chris.

The Club finds out whom Bethany visited in the apartment block—Mike’s assistant Pauline, who tells them later what she and Bethany had been doing. But this is after the man behind the fraud has been unmasked up in the house in Staffordshire, where he was trying to hire the Viking and Viktor to find the money that he had stashed away, using accounts that he could no longer trace. He has also confessed to murdering Bethany, hoping this will persuade the two money launderers to help him, but it turns out that he did not do this. Nor did he kill Heather, the incriminating note having been placed in her room by Connie, who decided that Heather’s suicide should be treated as murder so that the person who had been blackmailing her should be found out.

It was Jack Mason’s murder that was brought home to the crook. It turns out that Bethany, her appearance altered by Pauline, has vanished, to a new life in Dubai, where she has taken control of the missing millions. She has gone there because the threat, she received through the bullet she was looking at in the preamble, was to Mike and she wanted him out of danger.

Yet another whimsical conclusion to a whimsical book with enough loose ends left hanging for another sequel.