Midweek Review

Light Sorrow: Peradeniya Imagination

Published

2 years ago

2024/08/14

Sahan Weerasooriya

Review of A Bend in the River by Ernest|
Macintyre (Vijitha Yapa, 2024)

By Laleen Jayamanne

The celebrated Lankan director and play-write Ernest Thalayasingam Macintyre (who has been active in English Language theatre for over 50 years), has given us a most unusual book (written in his 90s in Sydney, Australia), on his and his generations’ years as undergraduates at the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya in the mid 1950s. There are plans to translate it into Sinhala as well. Mac, as he is popularly known, characterises his book in the following way:

“Old Peradeniya University in Memory and Imagination with a play in one act to conclude. Under The Ola Leaves about the tragedy between man and beast in Sinhabahu”.

A selection of small black and white photographs (so reminiscent of the size and feel of photos of that era’s family albums), of the Peradeniya campus and of visionaries who contributed to its cultural and spiritual vitality, has been carefully placed within the text. These photo (light)-images texture our perception and make time move our minds in a non-linear manner (as we pause to look at them), like meandering rivulets of the great sweeping river of Lankan ethno-nationalist post-colonial history itself. Seeing the high-angle shot of the misty hills through which the Mahaweli winds its way, placed towards the end of the book, creates a melancholy feeling of a time lost. The very first photo, of the memorial honouring Shirley D’Alwis (the architect who designed the magnificent modern campus buildings to echo the architecture of the classical eras), situated at the first roundabout on the main Galaha road, is unavoidably shot through with the more recent memory of decapitated heads grotesquely arranged like lotuses, around the shallow pond surrounding that very monument, during the ‘second JVP vs the Government’ mass killings.

Indeed, this small book of ‘memory and imagination’ takes poetic license in creating three fictional characters through whom we experience the ebullient years that Mac spent (making life-long friendships), at Peradeniya University. These three characters, Sita Fernando (from Ladies College), Phillip Fernando (from St Peters College) and Sidharthan Rasanayagam (from Jaffna College), are actually dramatis personae borrowed from Mac’s Black Comedy Rasanayagam’s Last Riot (Sydney, 1996), on the July ‘83 Anti-Tamil pogram which inaugurated the near 30 year civil-war. This poetic strategy, where biography and fiction are entwined, provides the playwright (born in Colombo but educated at St Patricks’ College, Jaffna), ample room to ‘dramatise’ the everyday University life of the young intellectuals experiencing a remarkable measure of independence from family and their social milieus for the first time. Also, for the first time young Lankans of different classes, ethnicities and languages, and religions found themselves living with each other in close proximity.

In addition, there is real dramatic excitement through theatrical activities of staging plays in both English and Sinhala. Sita, Philip and even Rasa perform in a production of the English language Dramatic Society (with its prior distinguished history at the University College in Colombo), under the direction of Professor of English, E. F. C. Ludowyk. This dramatic society is considered foundational for modern Lankan theatre where students were first introduced to modern European drama with Professor Ludowyk playing a leading role. The occasion is poignant as it is his farewell production of Bernard Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion, before he leaves the country in ‘56 for good, to retire to England. The activities around the creation of modern Sinhala theatre history at the University of Peradeniya, the plans to produce Maname with undergraduates, by Professor Ediriweera Sarthchandra, in 1956 is among the high points of the book, as is a test run of Sinhabahu in the open-air theatre. The imagined lecture given (based on factual information), by Prof. Sarachchandra to drum up support for the production of Maname, and to welcome the students to the multi-faceted University experience, are brilliant moments, spot-lit one might say, at the heart of the multi-ethnic linguistic political vision of this book, which Mac calls the ‘Peradeniya imagination’. I will return shortly to this intellectually stimulating scene which feels like an inspiring lecture because of its dramatic conception.

I write this review as one who experienced Peradeniya of University with all its splendour for a very brief but intellectually unmatched two years as a Temporary Assistant Lecturer in Western Classics, from ‘69 to April ‘71. What I studied, learnt and experienced there, while teaching with Professor Cuthbert Amerasinghe, feels like a seed bed that still nourishes my mind at 77. The explosion of bombs in one of the male halls of residence set off a curfew with a state of emergency enforced immediately, marking the first JVP Insurgency of April ‘71, during which month bullet riddled bodies of educated young Sinhala men and women floated down that great river to the sea. So, it’s with much interest that I read Mac’s account of the legendry period of the 50s when the great hopes of C. W. W. Kannangara’s ‘free education’ policy of 1948 was to inaugurate a confident, fairer post-colonial Lanka. Reading about it now in 2024 one recalls the recently installed Bronze statue (by Sarath Chandrajeeva), of the first Vice Chancellor, Sir Ivor Jennings, the implementor of that vision, gently fashioning an enchanted natural landscape at Peradeniya which still appears to flourish despite all.

The first chapter, ‘A Train Comes In’, introduces both Sita and Phillip from Colombo, strangers at first who find themselves congenially in the same carriage (and even married much later when they appear in Rasanayagam’s Last Riot), and also the lay out of the campus. The second chapter has Phillip and Sidharthan as ‘Room Mates’ where the former promptly decides to call the latter Rasa, establishing a lifelong friendship which ends tragically (in the play Rasanayagam’s Last Riot), in July ‘83 when, caught by a Sinhala mob, he refuses on principle to pronounce the word bucket in Sinhala as baldiya and meets his death. It is as room-mates that Phillip casually taught him in a jocular manner, the difference between Baldi and Valdi.

The main focus of the book is around the rich theatrical activities on campus in both English and Sinhala, which laid the foundations, after their undergraduate days, for the development of a robust bi-lingual theatre in the 60s, centred at first at the Lionel Wendt Theatre Colombo with the Stage and Set Group formed by Mac and his Peradeniya friends, strengthened by the exceptional acting talents of Irangani and Winston Serasinghe too. Given the theatrical emphasis in the book, one gets the impression that above all, it is theatre that galvanised Mac’s imagination at Peradeniya far more than any academic subject as such, for there is no scene set in the magnificent library, amidst the stacks for example, a favourite spot for lovers. Importantly, he shows persuasively that these theatrical activities were integrally linked to wider political currents of the country as well and offers a vision of Lanka imbibed at the University, which is universalist and humanist in outlook, inclusive and open to the world, not parochially ethno-nationalist and myopic.

At a student meeting held by a government official to discuss the proposed national flag for the country, a Muslim student, Ibrahim, known as a resident ‘joker’ makes fun of the manner in which concessions are made to ethnic minorities of the country who are marginalised with simplistic colour coding by the national emblem of the sword-carrying lion taking the lion’s share of space. This mythical lion, emblem of the Sinhala folk, recurs in various dramatic forms right across this book creating an emotional resonance that vibrates across their student lives and also across several aspects of the post-colonial history of the country. Mac treats the iconic lion as a poetic emblem to critique the emerging ethno-nationalism in the wake of the 1956 ‘Sinhala Only Act’ which affects the students for generations to come, as well. Mac poses a challenge to ethno-nationalism in the following way:

“In the connected event of ‘56, Maname of Peradeniya may be conceived in relation to Sinhala Only Act. It is a great Sinhala play because it is not Sinhala only” (p.64).

Mac gives us an understanding of the wide range of world historical theatrical research which was essential for Sarachchandra in developing his scholarly book on Lankan Folk Drama at first, and then his two plays, Maname and Sinhabahu. These include the knowledge of Indian theatrical traditions and theory, Greek theatre and theatrical theory and Japanese Noh drama as well. Without a knowledge of English, such wide ranging research in depth would have been impossible. At the marvellously conceived, well attended lecture organised by the Sinhala Natya Mandalaya, Professor Sarachchandra speaks (seated flanked by Charles Silva Gunasinghe Gurunanse from Balangoda and Dr Siri Gunasinghe, a lecturer in Sanskrit), of this rich context in which Maname was conceived. The importance of the Tamil folk form Natu Kuthu (originally from South India and then performed in the North East of Lanka), for the development of the Sinhala Nadagam form, on which Maname in turn is based, is also made explicit. Mac then adds other sources such as the Kurosava’s film Rashomon as a vital influence on Sarachchandra in transforming the moralistic, misogynist ending of the folk tale into a Modern parable of a multi-perspectival reading of the controversial ending of the play. He does something similar in his own play Under the Ola Leaf at the end of this book.

While there is no need to rehearse that ending of Maname here, the point Mac makes is that if all scholars or play-wrights knew was ‘Sinhala only’, then much of world drama and film would be inaccessible to Lankans, creating an academic parochialism. A small but very significant feminist angle is introduced by shifting the emphasis to the actress who was to play the princess. In her school days she had played the role in the old folk version where the princess is condemned as being fickle in betraying her husband, the prince. The student’s training in movement and singing by Gunasinghe Gurunanse while she was still at school has been decisive in being chosen for the role in the current play. But it’s the dialogue between Professor Sarachchandra and her which I find most remarkable. When he asks her if she was ‘happy to act the evil princess in the folk tale’, instead of answering the question, she queries the professor as to why he asks that specific question in the first place. This rather rare critical ability (of not taking anything for granted), pleases Professor Sarachchandra who says: ‘I knew I was meeting a creative woman’.

We experience the ‘race-riots’ of ‘58 through Sita and Philip who have gone down to Colombo with Rasa having been invited to stay in the safety of Philip’s house. Though they are safe, the effects of the violence are felt by all three young intellectuals and casts a dark shadow on the short time they have left at Peradeniya. In the concluding section of the book (shaken by the national tragedy, made all the more acute by their protective, deep friendship with Rasa, enacted so close to home by the burning down of Saraswathi Lodge where they’d just eaten the night before), Mac offers as an olive branch, through a dramatic enactment of what he calls the ‘Peradeniya imagination’.

The setting is a conversation among the three friends as they walk on the Galaha road in the dark, after having seen a test performance of Sinhabahu at the famous open-air theatre of the Peradeniya campus on the eve of their departure from University life in 1959. The mood is thoughtful, sombre. Sita leads the conversation with her sharp analytical mind which the other two take in quietly. All three have registered the pathos of the ending, the sudden blackout and long silence, as did the rest of the audience in being very slow to applaud and that too so quietly as the actors come forward slowly.

“As the stage lights went out to end the experience, almost abruptly, when the Lion Sinhaya fell down from his human son’s third arrow in the chest, the dumb founded silence, lasting seemingly to continue without let up, covertly suggested other considerations beyond the extracted part of the Mahavamsa story… it seemed to invite the audience to think of what was left unperformed in the large story of the Mahavamsa which the audience were familiar with. The origin of the Sinhalese” (72-73).

Patricide is a terrible crime and as in Oedipus Rex, leaves the ‘innocent’ killer/son tormented and blind. The play Under the Ola Leaf written by Sita is an effort to offer a new perspective on the old Mahavamsa legend by exploring the sense of pathos, the ‘pity and fear’ they all registered at the end of Sinhabahu that night in the open-air theatre. Precisely because there is no ‘catharis’ or release possible (as mandated by Aristotle in his conception of Tragedy), after the horrific act of patricide, the ending of the play creates a sense of desolation.

In Ludowyk’s decision to stage Androcles and the Lion as his farewell play in 1956, he had the lion’s head worn by the actor designed like the one on Lankan heraldry. Mac states that the choice of this play was a political gesture of farewell, (a parable on gratitude and compassion), to a country that Ludowyk loved dearly and contributed so much of value to enrich its multiethnic cultural and intellectual life. That all too human lion, grateful to the slave Androcles who once removed the thorn from his wounded paw, refuses to kill him later, and instead embraces him.

Mac’s one act play is also a parable for our times. He refuses to forget the heart- rending line, ‘me mage puthu novedo!’ (Is this not my son!). But he also refuses to forget (contrary to the Mahavamsa legend), the affective point of view of the son, Sinhabahu. In the play he is a man with a conscience and the patricide a swift ‘mercy killing’ so that his lion-father may not be trapped, tortured and beaten to death by the blood thirsty villagers.

In addition, Mac gives Vijaya, Sinhabahu’s own son (the legendry founder of Lanka), a more enlightening role than that of a rebellious son attributed by the Mahavamsa. Vijaya is a post Darwinian human, and so for him the lion on his flag (his grandfather), is to be remembered not as a killer but as embodying love. In so doing he appears to acknowledge our kinship with the animal world and therefore the seated lion on his flag, pointedly does not carry a sword. This is Mac’s alternative enlightening avihimsa perspective on the national patricidal legend, where the father, son and the grandson appear to evolve ethically, which augurs well for the new hybrid, multi-ethnic nation yet to be born. Mac reminds us, through Rasa, that Buddhism once flourished among the Tamils of South India as well.

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Midweek Review

A ‘partnership’ like no other!

Published

5 days ago

2026/09/16

Sahan Weerasooriya

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at the Indian Army memorial

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

By Shamindra Ferdinando

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A significant visit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two Battaramulla memorials

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The way forward

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

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

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

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

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

Midweek Review

Feeling political sadness as signs of hope and resistance

Published

5 days ago

2026/09/16

Sahan Weerasooriya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then,
hell of despair

would seem
like
heaven of hope”

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

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