Features

Some reflections on sinhala popular music

Published

3 years ago

2023/02/20

By Uditha Devapriya

In Modernizing Composition: Sinhala Song, Poetry, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Sri Lanka (University of California Press, 2017), Garrett Field emphasises the role that radio played in disseminating and elevating musical standards in the newly independent colonies of South Asia. The 1950s, when this process played itself out, was a period in which the state and institutional politics “became inextricable from linguistic nationalism.” Across Sri Lanka, these links found their fullest expression in Radio Ceylon, specifically after the latter began to employ professional Sinhala songwriters.

This was not a development unique to Sri Lanka. As Coonoor Kripalani has argued, in India radio served a pivotal function “in building patriotism and nationhood” after independence. Radio was cheaper and more accessible, while in Sri Lanka it predated television by three decades. In India, as in Sri Lanka, it provided litterateurs, composers, and performers who had depended on the patronage of the colonial bourgeoisie, and had thrived on the cultural revivalist movements of the 19th century, a more solid institutional footing.

Field’s book is important for several reasons, in particular its attempt at understanding the subtleties of Sinhala music through translation. However, it ends at a point – the mid-1960s – when Sinhala music was about to embark on its most colourful period.

To say this is not to belittle Field’s book. Modernizing Composition fills a great many gaps, including its exploration of the links between commercial capitalism and the revival of Sinhala music in the early 20th century. It also acknowledges that music and poetry cannot be viewed in isolation from one another, particularly in the context of newly decolonised societies searching for a cultural identity. Indeed, its immense scope and breadth are why Field’s analysis, sound as it is, should be carried forward to the 1960s and 1970s, especially since it was in these later periods that the factors that underpinned the popularity of Sinhala music – free education and linguistic nationalism – reached their apogees.

To be sure, these two periods – the 1940s-1950s and the 1960s-1970s – were qualitatively different. They imbibed different cultural influences and pandered to different audiences and markets. Following Sheldon Pollock, Professor Field uses the theory of “cosmopolitan vernacularism” to explain how, following independence, poets and songwriters grafted or superimposed classical literary aesthetics on regional languages and thereby gave birth to “new premodern vernacular literatures.” Throughout South Asia in general, and across Sri Lanka in particular, it was Sanskrit that indigenous poets and songwriters turned to in their quest to elevate their linguistic heritages and lineages. The more Westernised among them also sought inspiration from modernist American and European poetry.

Since I am by no means a specialist in anthropology, I cannot pass judgments on how these developments played themselves out in the 1960s. Yet it is clear that these developments had their origins in the period immediately preceding 1956. Now, 1956 meant a great many things to a great many people. To some it symbolised the triumph of the indigenous over the foreign; to others, the triumph of ethno-religious majoritarianism. Whichever way you look at it, 1956 provided the crucible through Sinhala music could continue to transform, to evolve, and to thrive. Here I am concerned with two musical forms: baila and pop music. My justification for this is simple: it is these two genres which facilitated the popularisation, or what I call the “middle-browing”, of Sinhala music after the 1960s.

Baila is more controversial and more contentious than Sinhala pop. As Anne Sheeran has noted, baila as a musical genre, activates both conformist and conservative elements. It at once provokes many of us to flout tradition, and compels not a few others to protest that flouting of tradition. Thus nationalist ideologues can bemoan the deterioration of cultural values, and parents can bemoan their children’s addition to the latest cultural trends, by invoking its name. In other words, is it the proverbial bogeyman in the room, a scapegoat for the death of culture, and the last resort of the puritan.

It is all these things. Yet as one historian communicated to me some years ago, baila stands with ves natum as one of the most uniquely indigenous cultural forms in Sri Lanka, an irony given their foreign roots (Portuguese and Indian). And in the 1960s and 1970s, it underwent a transition that would define the trajectory of Sinhala music.

The significance of this transition cannot be overrated. Such transitions were taking place in other cultural spheres as well. In literature, the renaissance that had been heralded by Martin Wickramasinghe had meandered to the popular fiction of Karunasena Jayalath. In film, Lester James Peries’s experiments had enabled a number of directors, including two of his assistants and colleagues, Titus Thotawatte (Chandiya) and Tissa Liyanasuriya (Saravita), to seek a middle-ground between artistic and commercial cinema. The situation was rather different in the theatre, where a new generation of bilingual writers, including Dayananda Gunawardena, Premaranjith Tilakaratne, G. D. L. Perera, Henry Jayasena, Dhamma Jagoda, Gunasena Galappatti, and Simon Navagattegama, continued to hold on to some semblance of a benchmark. Yet even they sought a break from the past.

By this I do not mean to say, or suggest, that there was a complete rupture in Sinhala music. The old musical forms continued to thrive, if not evolve. The first generation of lyricists and songwriters, including Chandraratne Manawasinghe, Madawala Rathnayake, and the great Mahagama Sekara, continued to write for old collaborators, as well as new voices. However, many of them remained utterly classical in their views on music, and it was these views that prevailed at Radio Ceylon. As Tissa Abeysekera has controversially remarked, on more than one occasion, this had the effect of stunting the growth of Western music in Sri Lanka, even as Western music was gaining popularity over the airwaves and on film in India. Against that backdrop, a new generation of composers was bound to emerge.

In a series of essays, all anthologised in Roots, Reflections and Reminiscences (Sarasavi, 2007), Abeysekera argues that the conflict here was between those who advocated the Indianisation or Sanskritisation of local music and those who promoted more vernacular, indigenous musical forms. He refers to the visit of S. N. Ratanjankar and the audition that was conducted at Radio Ceylon, under his supervision, and points out that these led to the stagnation of Sinhala music. However, Garrett Field’s take on the visit, and the audition, is different: citing a speech that he delivered at the Royal Asiatic Society in Colombo, a speech Abeysekara does not quote from, Field contends that Ratanjankar wanted artistes to “create a modern song, based on folk poetry and folk music.” This is at variance with Abeysekera’s reading of events, which make it out that Ratanjankar, if not the authorities at Radio Ceylon, marginalised proponents of folk music, including Sunil Shantha.

I think both Field and Abeysekera have a point, and both are correct. While promoting if not advocating the indigenisation of music, Sinhala composers consciously went back to North Indian influences. Contrary to what Abeysekera has written, what this achieved in the end was a fusion of disparate cultural elements – Sinhala folk poetry and Sanskrit aesthetics – which laid the groundwork for an efflorescence in Sinhala music. At the same time, those who diverged from the mainstream trend of incorporating North Indian musical elements retreated to a world of their own. They included not just Sunil Shantha, but also the first-generation proponents of baila, like Wally Bastiansz, who found a niche audience eager to listen to them but failed to penetrate more middle-class audiences.

The question thus soon arose as to who could push these developments on to mainstream listeners. In the 1950s Sinhala composers and lyricists had popularised folk poetry through sarala gee, or light classical songs. In the 1960s baila had succeeded folk poetry as a popular musical form. The task of making baila palatable for young, Sinhala speaking audiences, fell on a new generation of composers. This new generation found their inspiration not so much in North Indian music as in Elvis, the Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix.

Their turning point, if it can be called that, came in 1967, a decade after 1956, when a little-known group, called The Moonstones, made their debut on Radio Ceylon. Featuring guitars, congas, maracas, and Cuban drums, their impact was immediate, so much so that within the next two years, both Phillips and Sooriya had signed them onboard.

What The Moonstones, and its lead Clarence Wijewardena, did was not so much challenge or flout the musical establishment of their time as to perform for an audience different in outlook and attitude to the audiences which the establishment had pandered to until then. This is a very important point, since I do not think there was a grand overarching conflict, in any way, between the new generation and the old. The old lyricists continued to write for their collaborators, and they willingly collaborated with the new voices: Sekara, for instance, wrote a song for one of the more prominent new voices, Indrani Perera, while Amaradeva sang for Clarence Wijewardena. Contrary to Abeysekera, I hence prefer to see this period as one of collaboration rather than outright, fight-to-the-death competition.

Field’s analysis, as I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, ends somewhere in the 1960s. His research is impeccably sound, and it deserves being carried forward. More than anything else, we need to know more about the audiences that the new composers, vocalists, and lyricists pandered to, and how exactly the latter groups pandered to them. We also need to know how their predecessors, who remained active in this period, interacted with them. I am specifically concerned here with the period from 1967 – when The Moonstones entered the mainstream – to 1978 – when a new government, a new economy, and an entirely new set of cultural forms and influences took the lead. All this represents much fieldwork for the anthropologist and historian of Sri Lankan, and South Asian, music. But it is the least we can do, given Garrett Field’s wonderful book and the many gaps it fills.

(The writer is an international relations analyst, researcher, and columnist who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com.)

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Features

Rethinking post-disaster urban planning: Lessons from Peradeniya

Published

1 day ago

2025/12/26

Thilina Walpola

University of Peradeniya

A recent discussion by former Environment Minister, Eng. Patali Champika Ranawaka on the Derana 360 programme has reignited an important national conversation on how Sri Lanka plans, builds and rebuilds in the face of recurring disasters.

His observations, delivered with characteristic clarity and logic, went beyond the immediate causes of recent calamities and focused sharply on long-term solutions—particularly the urgent need for smarter land use and vertical housing development.

Ranawaka’s proposal to introduce multistoried housing schemes in the Gannoruwa area, as a way of reducing pressure on environmentally sensitive and disaster-prone zones, resonated strongly with urban planners and environmentalists alike.

It also echoed ideas that have been quietly discussed within academic and conservation circles for years but rarely translated into policy.

One such voice is that of Professor Siril Wijesundara, Research Professor at the National Institute of Fundamental Studies (NIFS) and former Director General of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, who believes that disasters are often “less acts of nature and more outcomes of poor planning.”

Professor Siril Wijesundara

“What we repeatedly see in Sri Lanka is not merely natural disasters, but planning failures,” Professor Wijesundara told The Island.

“Floods, landslides and environmental degradation are intensified because we continue to build horizontally, encroaching on wetlands, forest margins and river reservations, instead of thinking vertically and strategically.”

The former Director General notes that the University of Peradeniya itself offers a compelling case study of both the problem and the solution. The main campus, already densely built and ecologically sensitive, continues to absorb new faculties, hostels and administrative buildings, placing immense pressure on green spaces and drainage systems.

“The Peradeniya campus was designed with landscape harmony in mind,” he said. “But over time, ad-hoc construction has compromised that vision. If development continues in the same manner, the campus will lose not only its aesthetic value but also its ecological resilience.”

Professor Wijesundara supports the idea of reorganising the Rajawatte area—located away from the congested core of the university—as a future development zone. Rather than expanding inward and fragmenting remaining open spaces, he argues that Rajawatte can be planned as a well-designed extension, integrating academic, residential and service infrastructure in a controlled manner.

Crucially, he stresses that such reorganisation must go hand in hand with social responsibility, particularly towards minor staff currently living in the Rajawatte area.

“These workers are the backbone of the university. Any development plan must ensure their dignity and wellbeing,” he said. “Providing them with modern, safe and affordable multistoried housing—especially near the railway line close to the old USO premises—would be both humane and practical.”

According to Professor Wijesundara, housing complexes built near existing transport corridors would reduce daily commuting stress, minimise traffic within the campus, and free up valuable land for planned academic use.

More importantly, vertical housing would significantly reduce the university’s physical footprint.

Drawing parallels with Ranawaka’s Gannoruwa proposal, he emphasised that vertical development is no longer optional for Sri Lanka.

“We are a small island with a growing population and shrinking safe land,” he warned.

“If we continue to spread out instead of building up, disasters will become more frequent and more deadly. Vertical housing, when done properly, is environmentally sound, economically efficient and socially just.”

Peradeniya University flooded

The veteran botanist also highlighted the often-ignored link between disaster vulnerability and the destruction of green buffers.

“Every time we clear a lowland, a wetland or a forest patch for construction, we remove nature’s shock absorbers,” he said.

“The Royal Botanic Gardens has survived floods for over a century precisely because surrounding landscapes once absorbed excess water. Urban planning must learn from such ecological wisdom.”

Professor Wijesundara believes that universities, as centres of knowledge, should lead by example.

“If an institution like Peradeniya cannot demonstrate sustainable planning, how can we expect cities to do so?” he asked. “This is an opportunity to show that development and conservation are not enemies, but partners.”

As climate-induced disasters intensify across the country, voices like his—and proposals such as those articulated by Patali Champika Ranawaka—underscore a simple but urgent truth: Sri Lanka’s future safety depends not only on disaster response, but on how and where we build today.

The challenge now lies with policymakers and planners to move beyond television studio discussions and academic warnings, and translate these ideas into concrete, people-centred action.

By Ifham Nizam ✍️

Features

Superstition – Major barrier to learning and social advancement

Published

1 day ago

2025/12/26

Thilina Walpola

At the initial stage of my six-year involvement in uplifting society through skill-based initiatives, particularly by promoting handicraft work and teaching students to think creatively and independently, my efforts were partially jeopardized by deep-rooted superstition and resistance to rational learning.

Superstitions exerted a deeply adverse impact by encouraging unquestioned belief, fear, and blind conformity instead of reasoning and evidence-based understanding. In society, superstition often sustains harmful practices, social discrimination, exploitation by self-styled godmen, and resistance to scientific or social reforms, thereby weakening rational decision-making and slowing progress. When such beliefs penetrate the educational environment, students gradually lose the habit of asking “why” and “how,” accepting explanations based on fate, omens, or divine intervention rather than observation and logic.

Initially, learners became hesitant to challenge me despite my wrong interpretation of any law, less capable of evaluating information critically, and more vulnerable to misinformation and pseudoscience. As a result, genuine efforts towards social upliftment were obstructed, and the transformative power of education, which could empower individuals economically and intellectually, was weakened by fear-driven beliefs that stood in direct opposition to progress and rational thought. In many communities, illnesses are still attributed to evil spirits or curses rather than treated as medical conditions. I have witnessed educated people postponing important decisions, marriages, journeys, even hospital admissions, because an astrologer predicted an “inauspicious” time, showing how fear governs rational minds.

While teaching students science and mathematics, I have clearly observed how superstition acts as a hidden barrier to learning, critical thinking, and intellectual confidence. Many students come to the classroom already conditioned to believe that success or failure depends on luck, planetary positions, or divine favour rather than effort, practice, and understanding, which directly contradicts the scientific spirit. I have seen students hesitate to perform experiments or solve numerical problems on certain “inauspicious” days.

In mathematics, some students label themselves as “weak by birth”, which creates fear and anxiety even before attempting a problem, turning a subject of logic into a source of emotional stress. In science classes, explanations based on natural laws sometimes clash with supernatural beliefs, and students struggle to accept evidence because it challenges what they were taught at home or in society. This conflict confuses young minds and prevents them from fully trusting experimentation, data, and proof.

Worse still, superstition nurtures dependency; students wait for miracles instead of practising problem-solving, revision, and conceptual clarity. Over time, this mindset damages curiosity, reduces confidence, and limits innovation, making science and mathematics appear difficult, frightening, or irrelevant. Many science teachers themselves do not sufficiently emphasise the need to question or ignore such irrational beliefs and often remain limited to textbook facts and exam-oriented learning, leaving little space to challenge superstition directly. When teachers avoid discussing superstition, they unintentionally reinforce the idea that scientific reasoning and superstitious beliefs can coexist.

To overcome superstition and effectively impose critical thinking among students, I have inculcated the process to create a classroom culture where questioning was encouraged and fear of being “wrong” was removed. Students were taught how to think, not what to think, by consistently using the scientific method—observation, hypothesis, experimentation, evidence, and conclusion—in both science and mathematics lessons. I have deliberately challenged superstitious beliefs through simple demonstrations and hands-on experiments that allow students to see cause-and-effect relationships for themselves, helping them replace belief with proof.

Many so-called “tantrik shows” that appear supernatural can be clearly explained and exposed through basic scientific principles, making them powerful tools to fight superstition among students. For example, acts where a tantrik places a hand or tongue briefly in fire without injury rely on short contact time, moisture on the skin, or low heat transfer from alcohol-based flames rather than divine power.

“Miracles” like ash or oil repeatedly appearing from hands or idols involve concealment or simple physical and chemical tricks. When these tricks are demonstrated openly in classrooms or science programmes and followed by clear scientific explanations, students quickly realise how easily perception can be deceived and why evidence, experimentation, and critical questioning are far more reliable than blind belief.

Linking concepts to daily life, such as explaining probability to counter ideas of luck, or biology to explain illness instead of supernatural causes, makes rational explanations relatable and convincing.

Another unique example that I faced in my life is presented here. About 10 years ago, when I entered my new house but did not organise traditional rituals that many consider essential for peace and prosperity as my relatives believed that without them prosperity would be blocked. Later on, I could not utilise the entire space of my newly purchased house for earning money, largely because I chose not to perform certain rituals.

While this decision may have limited my financial gains to some extent, I do not consider it a failure in the true sense. I feel deeply satisfied that my son and daughter have received proper education and are now well settled in their employment, which, to me, is a far greater achievement than any ritual-driven expectation of wealth. My belief has always been that a house should not merely be a source of income or superstition-bound anxiety, but a space with social purpose.

Instead of rituals, I strongly feel that the unused portion of my house should be devoted to running tutorials for poor and underprivileged students, where knowledge, critical thinking, and self-reliance can be nurtured. This conviction gives me inner peace and reinforces my faith that education and service to society are more meaningful measures of success than material profit alone.

Though I have succeeded to some extent, this success has not been complete due to the persistent influence of superstition.

by Dr Debapriya Mukherjee
Former Senior Scientist
Central Pollution Control Board, India ✍️

Features

Race hate and the need to re-visit the ‘Clash of Civilizations’

Published

2 days ago

2025/12/25

Sahan Weerasooriya

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese: ‘No to race hate’

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has done very well to speak-up against and outlaw race hate in the immediate aftermath of the recent cold-blooded gunning down of several civilians on Australia’s Bondi Beach. The perpetrators of the violence are believed to be ardent practitioners of religious and race hate and it is commendable that the Australian authorities have lost no time in clearly and unambiguously stating their opposition to the dastardly crimes in question.

The Australian Prime Minister is on record as stating in this connection: ‘ New laws will target those who spread hate, division and radicalization. The Home Affairs Minister will also be given new powers to cancel or refuse visas for those who spread hate and a new taskforce will be set up to ensure the education system prevents, tackles and properly responds to antisemitism.’

It is this promptness and single-mindedness to defeat race hate and other forms of identity-based animosities that are expected of democratic governments in particular world wide. For example, is Sri Lanka’s NPP government willing to follow the Australian example? To put the record straight, no past governments of Sri Lanka initiated concrete measures to stamp out the evil of race hate as well but the present Sri Lankan government which has pledged to end ethnic animosities needs to think and act vastly differently. Democratic and progressive opinion in Sri Lanka is waiting expectantly for the NPP government’ s positive response; ideally based on the Australian precedent to end race hate.

Meanwhile, it is apt to remember that inasmuch as those forces of terrorism that target white communities world wide need to be put down their counterpart forces among extremist whites need to be defeated as well. There could be no double standards on this divisive question of quashing race and religious hate, among democratic governments.

The question is invariably bound up with the matter of expeditiously and swiftly advancing democratic development in divided societies. To the extent to which a body politic is genuinely democratized, to the same degree would identity based animosities be effectively managed and even resolved once and for all. To the extent to which a society is deprived of democratic governance, correctly understood, to the same extent would it experience unmanageable identity-bred violence.

This has been Sri Lanka’s situation and generally it could be stated that it is to the degree to which Sri Lankan citizens are genuinely constitutionally empowered that the issue of race hate in their midst would prove manageable. Accordingly, democratic development is the pressing need.

While the dramatic blood-letting on Bondi Beach ought to have driven home to observers and commentators of world politics that the international community is yet to make any concrete progress in the direction of laying the basis for an end to identity-based extremism, the event should also impress on all concerned quarters that continued failure to address the matters at hand could prove fatal. The fact of the matter is that identity-based extremism is very much alive and well and that it could strike devastatingly at a time and place of its choosing.

It is yet premature for the commentator to agree with US political scientist Samuel P. Huntingdon that a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ is upon the world but events such as the Bondi Beach terror and the continuing abduction of scores of school girls by IS-related outfits, for instance, in Northern Africa are concrete evidence of the continuing pervasive presence of identity-based extremism in the global South.

As a matter of great interest it needs mentioning that the crumbling of the Cold War in the West in the early nineties of the last century and the explosive emergence of identity-based violence world wide around that time essentially impelled Huntingdon to propound the hypothesis that the world was seeing the emergence of a ‘Clash of Civilizations’. Basically, the latter phrase implied that the Cold War was replaced by a West versus militant religious fundamentalism division or polarity world wide. Instead of the USSR and its satellites, the West, led by the US, had to now do battle with religion and race-based militant extremism, particularly ‘Islamic fundamentalist violence’ .

Things, of course, came to a head in this regard when the 9/11 calamity centred in New York occurred. The event seemed to be startling proof that the world was indeed faced with a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ that was not easily resolvable. It was a case of ‘Islamic militant fundamentalism’ facing the great bulwark, so to speak, of ‘ Western Civilization’ epitomized by the US and leaving it almost helpless.

However, it was too early to write off the US’ capability to respond, although it did not do so by the best means. Instead, it replied with military interventions, for example, in Iraq and Afghanistan, which moves have only earned for the religious fundamentalists more and more recruits.

Yet, it is too early to speak in terms of a ‘Clash of Civilizations’. Such a phenomenon could be spoken of if only the entirety of the Islamic world took up arms against the West. Clearly, this is not so because the majority of the adherents of Islam are peaceably inclined and want to coexist harmoniously with the rest of the world.

However, it is not too late for the US to stop religious fundamentalism in its tracks. It, for instance, could implement concrete measures to end the blood-letting in the Middle East. Of the first importance is to end the suffering of the Palestinians by keeping a tight leash on the Israeli Right and by making good its boast of rebuilding the Gaza swiftly.

Besides, the US needs to make it a priority aim to foster democratic development worldwide in collaboration with the rest of the West. Military expenditure and the arms race should be considered of secondary importance and the process of distributing development assistance in the South brought to the forefront of its global development agenda, if there is one.

If the fire-breathing religious demagogue’s influence is to be blunted worldwide, then, it is development, understood to mean equitable growth, that needs to be fostered and consolidated by the democratic world. In other words, the priority ought to be the empowerment of individuals and communities. Nothing short of the latter measures would help in ushering a more peaceful world.