Features

Moving up the CCS ladder, the 1915 riots and war service

Published

4 years ago

2022/10/23

By Sir Henry Monck-Mason Moore,
last British Governor of Colonial Ceylon
Excerpted from HAJ Hulugalle’s British Governors of Ceylon

(Continued from last week)

On arrival in Ceylon in 1910 I was attached as a Cadet first to the Secretariat and then to the Colombo Kachcheri. Sir Henry McCallum was Governor, Sir Hugh Clifford, Colonial Secretary and Mr. E Bowes Principal Assistant Secretary. From such minute papers as came my way, it did not appear that Sir Henry and Sir Hugh were always at one in the views expressed.

Later, when in 1924 1 was posted to the Nigerian Secretariat, Sir Hugh Clifford was Governor and Sir Donald Cameron, Chief Secretary. They were a remarkable and highly gifted combination, both men of outstanding ability in their respective spheres. Sir Hugh was in my opinion quite the most outstanding personality under whom I have served despite his personal eccentricities of genius. It was a tragedy that they should have developed into a form of mental instability by the time he returned to Ceylon as Governor and then to Malaya. I will refer to this again later.

After my first year in Colombo I had been assured that I should remain in Jaffna for a year or more at least, and as stated earlier I had invited my sister to stay there with me. We were a happy party in the Jaffna Fort, which has been well described by Leonard Woolf in the second volume of his autobiography.It was much the same in my day. I also came to have a great respect and liking for the industry and sturdy independence of the Jaffna Tamil, and I was, therefore, very disappointed to have to leave it so soon to become an itinerating police magistrate up and down the Colombo-Kandy road. Before long I was back again in Colombo for a short spell as municipal magistrate, then to the Customs, finally as fourth Assistant in the Secretariat.

Colombo in the days of the Rubber Boom has in retrospect a very materialistic look. All communities were in a rush to get rich quick. Socially, wealth was the golden key to unlock the gate for the would-be social climber; and the Civil Service `caste’, as it had been described, could not compete, despite official prestige, with the Fort merchant princes. Up country. the planting industry was offering high prices for land which was disrupting the old aristocratic Kandyan feudal economy. while in Colombo the old caste distinctions in Sinhalese were becoming blurred by the wealth of a rapidly increasing middle class, which was also campaigning for a less paternal and more democratic form of government.

The Government and Assistant Government Agents in the Provinces and Districts were still left more or less undisturbed in the exercise of a paternal authority, and were genuinely interested in promoting the welfare and development of the local population with whom they were in close touch. Some viewed with reserve, not to say dismay, any attempt to bring political pressure upon them in the exercise of their duties.

Such an attitude is in no way peculiar to Ceylon. It is shared by the Civil Servants the world over, and as an old Civil Servant myself I have noted with regret the dissolution of the Ceylon Civil Service with a record over the years of which it had every right to be proud.

In 1914 with little or no warning Ceylon was overtaken by the War. At that time most believed it would be of short duration and unlikely to constitute any serious threat to British possessions East of Suez, though Ceylon was full of alarms and excursions so long as The Emden (a German cruiser) was at large. The Ceylon contingent of volunteers was quickly despatched to Egypt and the local volunteer regiments mobilized to defend our shores and in particular the Port of Colombo, which was the main port of call for Australian and New Zealand troops in transit to the battle fronts.

At this time of crisis Sir Edward Stubbs, who had very recently arrived as Colonial Secretary, became acting Governor until such time as Chalmers (later Lord Chalmers) took over the administration. They were both men of great mental ability from the Home Civil Service, and had this in common that neither had had any previous Colonial experience. In the event, they were called upon to handle the delicate situation created by the 1915 Ceylon Riots before they had much time or opportunity to be in close personal touch with the different facets of Ceylonese public opinion of which the Morning Leader was the most forceful exponent.

Stubbs with his acid wit and somewhat gauche approach had no strong personal appeal, though his charming wife was soon deservedly popular. Chalmers seemed to be surrounded by a small circle with whom he could swap classical jokes or pursue his Sanskrit studies with scholarly members of the Buddhist priesthood. When the late Dr. Solomon Fernando died suddenly in the course of a political speech, the story, probably apochryphal was that he remarked on receipt of the news: I suppose the good doctor must have heard a still small voice saying to him ‘Fernando Po”‘.

With the benefit of hind sight it is easy to be wise after the event, but I am inclined to think it was a mistake to have declared Martial Law on the outbreak of the riots. It must be remembered that there was an atmosphere of war hysteria abroad which the mutiny of the Guides at Singapore had intensified.

The Attorney-General, Sir Anton Bertram, a fine lawyer and scholar, was a conscientious character, who could become jittery under pressure. He advised that as the Empire was at war, all Ceylonese could be regarded as “statutory camp followers” within the meaning of the Army Act, and as such amenable to trial by Court Martial. In effect this meant that the General Officer Commanding rather than the Governor became responsible for the maintenance of law and order, though the civil courts continued to function for less serious offences.

In the last resort the General confirmed the findings of the Court Martial though they were submitted to him through the Governor. General Malcolm, though a gallant soldier, had not the experience to fit him for the exercise of such a responsible task.

After the riots I was Secretary of the Commission of Enquiry into the action of the police, under the chairmanship of the Chief Justice, Sir Alexander Wood Renton. The Commission could find no positive evidence of conspiracy, though after the Singapore mutiny a few letters were found from Ceylonese in Singapore enquiring as to the local position. But in Ceylon itself the wildest rumours were circulating among the ignorant villagers suggesting that there was no longer any British Government.

The trouble started at Gampola with a Buddhist Wesak procession marching past the Mohammedan mosque, in which the Buddhists, were clearly the aggressors. As this was a trouble spot of long standing, action should have been taken by the local authorities to maintain order at the outset. This was not done and the trouble spread to Kandy, where the Police Magistrate and the Government Agent again failed to deal with the situation firmly and there was more rioting and shooting.

From Kandy it spread like a forest fire to Colombo and the coastal districts. A map of the affected areas showing the dates on which the riots broke out clearly indicated how it spread, and was suggestive that it was fanned, whether deliberately or not, by the rumours spread abroad. That the Buddhists, despite their non-violent creed, were the aggressors there can be no doubt.

After the sack of the Pettah I gained some notoriety in dealing with a vast crowd, that was trying to cross the bridge over the Kelaniya river to reinforce their fellow Sinhalese, who were supposed to have been massacred and raped by the Moors. In fact the exact opposite was the case. After long parleys with their leaders I had no alternative but to give the officer commanding about a dozen volunteers; whom I had hastily summoned to defend the bridge, the order to fire.

The first round was fired over their heads, but the crowd with cries of “his tuakuva” (empty guns) rushed to within about ten yards of us when they were dispersed by a volley which left one or two killed and a few wounded in their wake. Of actual numbers I have no record.

By this time I had been appointed an additional District judge for the Western Province and also a Special Commissioner under the Martial Law regulations with a few Punjabi soldiers to restore law and order in the area around Veyangoda, Heneratgoda and Minuwangoda. Mr. Fraser, the Government Agent of the Western Province, had obtained approval of a plan whereby the damage done to Moorish boutiques and property should be roughly assessed and the victims compensated by the payment of a collective fine imposed upon the Sinhalese villagers concerned.

Such a compulsory levy would, it was hoped, act as a deterrent to further rioting and at the’ same time provide speedy compensation for the losses sustained by its victims. If carried out as originally conceived the results might or might not have justified such emergency measures. But at the very last moment Fraser was told that the levy should be presented as a voluntary one, and that those reluctant to subscribe should be warned that, their properties would be assessed, and that it would therefore be to their financial advantage to make an immediate voluntary payment rather than wait till the necessary legislation was enacted.

I do not know who was responsible for this decision, but I suspect that Sir Anton Bertram was getting cold feet at the consequences of his Martial Law decision. The officers responsible for the collection of the levy were now presented with an almost impossible task which was a source of constant embarrassment.

It fell to my lot to prepare the dossier on which the Attorney General decided to bring a Mr. Bandaranaike for trial by Court Martial. Mr. Bandaranaike, an ardent Buddhist and temperance campaigner, became a convert to Christianity during his detention and there was much backstair missionary pressure to secure his, release. Eventually Mr. Eardley Norton came over from India to defend him, and secured his acquittal by the surprise production of an Indian tea maker, who provided an alibi.

By 1916 1 had had some five and a half years service and was granted my first leave on condition that I got a commission in the Army on arrival in England. I had been refused permission to join the Ceylon contingent in 1914. In London I found that direct, commissions were no longer given, so I enlisted as a gunner and driver in the Royal Horse Artillery.

After three month’s in the ranks I was gazetted a Lieutenant and sent for a month’s gunnery course at Shoeburyness. Eventually I joined a 60-pounder battery of the RGA. and volunteered to go as an officer reinforcement to Salonika, as my own battery was not yet ready to be sent to France. I was eventually invalided from the Struma Front with malaria, and after a short spell at home was posted to a battery in France in time for the final German defeat.

After the armistice we were 24 days in the saddle taking part in the triumphal advance and formed part of the army of occupation outside Cologne. Eventually I was demobilized and returned to Ceylon in August 1919. I was posted again to the Secretariat as Fourth Assistant Secretary to find Sir Graeme Thomson recently appointed as Colonial Secretary and Sir William Manning as Governor. He was an old friend of my future wife’s parents. He had been Inspector-General of the East African Rifles before his appointment, as Governor of Nyasaland, where his first wife had left him, so that both in Jamaica and on his first arrival in Ceylon, Government House was without an official hostess.

The Bensons, had stayed with him in Jamaica and after the war were invited to do so again in Colombo. Mrs. Benson and her daughter stayed on at Queen’s House for some time when Mr. Benson had to return to London where he was the Manager of the Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Coy. He had received a CBE. for his work with the Ministry of Munitions.

As a junior Secretariat officer I did not move in Queen’s House circles, but one morning I was exercising my polo pony before breakfast on the Galle Face green when a runaway horse came charging down with Miss Benson in the saddle. It was a big Hackney mare which Mr. Bawa, KC, had lent her, and I soon discovered that as the saddle had slipped and both bit and stirrups were maladjusted the mare was unmanageable.

So we changed mounts and I escorted her to the Garden Club for repairs. We were destined to see much of each other later, as she stayed on with Sir Graeme and Lady ‘Thomson for some weeks when he was acting Governor and I became his Private Secretary during Sir William Manning’s absence in London to discuss the Manning Constitution.

This was the subject of much deliberation in which the very able Attorney-General, Sir Henry Gollan, played a leading part. As Collins, later Sir Charles Collins, was seconded for special duty over its preparation, there was little or no record of it in the current Secretariat files, and I do not think that Sir Graeme, as a newcomer, played a very active part.

He had made his name during the war as Director of Admiralty Transport, and was referred to by Lloyd George as the greatest Transport expert since Noah. His services were rewarded by the promise of a Colonial Governorship, and when British Guiana became vacant he was offered and accepted the post.

In Ceylon he was much interested in the extension of the Railway from Anuradhapura to Trincomalee, which was carried out despite much initial opposition. His foresight was amply vindicated by the part it played in the Second World War. He was somewhat shy and reserved, sparing both of the spoken and written word, but deliberate in judgment and most kind and considerate. Lady Thomson had abounding energy and never spared herself in social work of all kinds in which she was deeply interested. Sir Graeme was a first class shot especially with a rifle and also a keen fisherman. My main recreation was to combine some form of shooting with his official circuits in the country side.

Sir William Manning, during his visit to London, met Miss Olga Sefton-Jones in Mr. and Mrs. Benson’s house in London. The Sefton-Jones’s were a Quaker family and friends of the Bensons. On the return of Sir William to Ceylon I was posted to Trincomalee as Assistant Government Agent. It was in many ways my most enjoyable post in Ceylon. I was responsible for the acquisition of all the land required for the Trincomalee railway station and the naval oil installations at China Bay. In addition there was the normal work of the Assistant Government Agent. The visits of the Admiral at Admiralty House and of the Navy when their ships came in for gunnery practice provided an agreeable interlude on return from a fortnight or more on circuit through the villages and village tanks of the countryside.

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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.