Features

The early days, 1954-59: Gaining entrance to Cambridge

Published

3 years ago

2022/09/11

by Nimal Wikramanayake

Should I Write my Memoir? Like Winnie the Pooh, I thought a thought. Should I write my memoir and tell the world about the difficulties a brown-skinned man from an Asian country had to undergo in the legal profession in Melbourne? I abhor the use of the word “coloured”, for that would make my white Australian friends colourless. Would people be interested in what I had to undergo? Would they empathize with my annoyance, frustration and anger?

But as Tattersall’s declares when it sells its lottery tickets: “You’ve got to be in it to win it” I thought that unless I wrote this work and had it published, I would never know whether people would be interested in it or not. There have been many occasions when I have been angry with the way I have been discriminated against in Australia.

There have been many occasions when I have been frustrated at the way I have been treated in the legal profession as a whole. There have been many occasions when I have felt that a large mountain had been placed in my path. Like Sisyphus of Greek mythology, I have tried to push my rock up the mountain and on some occasions I have managed to clamber up over the top. But on these occasions, I have been pushed back down the mountainside, clutching my rock. I have tried as far as is humanly possible to keep bitterness out of this work. So without further ado, here is my story.

When I commenced writing this work I was in a quandary as to whether I should name the miscreants who did me much despite, as they say in the classics, but after discussing this matter with my friends I decided that I would not descend to their level. Therefore, save for the racists I refer to later in this work, they will remain nameless.

Coincidences

In 1983, my wife, Anna Maria, and I made one of our rare visits to the cinema to see the film Chariots of Fire. The film was about the exploits of the 1924 British team at the Olympic Games in Paris. One of the heroes of the film was Harold Abrahams, the son of a Jewish merchant, who had the temerity, as a Jew, to go to Cambridge University to study law and later became a member of the celebrated 1924 British Olympic team.

There were a number of coincidences between Abrahams’ life and mine, except that I was not a celebrated athlete. The first coincidence took place when, in the film, young Harold Abrahams was being dropped off at his college, Gonville & Caius (pronounced Keys), Cambridge University, on, I believe, Trumpington Street, but as Trumpington Street was too narrow to permit adequate filming, the beginning of the film commenced at Trinity Hall, the college where I studied law over 30 years later. Trinity Hall was situated behind Gonville & Caius at the bottom of Garret Hostel Lane.

The second coincidence took place when Abrahams met with racial discrimination at Cambridge and, on one occasion, frustrated and angry, he remarked to a friend of his that “the Anglo-Saxons would let me walk up to the trough but would not let me drink from it” For my part, I am fascinated by the use of the delightful word “Anglo-Saxon” The person who created this definition should be given a gold medal. It has a beautiful sound and is as dead as the races it depicts.

The Angles were an ancient race in England – long dead. The Saxons suffered the same fate under William the Conqueror. Abrahams added, “I will teach these people a lesson. I will run them off their feet.” I met with racial discrimination in Melbourne but I could not run the perpetrators of this discrimination off their feet, either literally or metaphorically.

I found this statement of Abrahams quite interesting for, at that time, Sir Rufus Isaacs KC, a member of the Jewish tribe, had been one of the leading lawyers of the English Bar. A few years earlier, he was a great rival of Sir Edward Carson and FE Smith, later Lord Birkenhead. Sir Rufus Isaacs, later Lord Reading, was Viceroy of India from 1921 to 1926 when Abrahams went to Cambridge.

I suffered no racial discrimination at Cambridge, and I often wondered whether, if I had migrated to England rather than to Australia, I would have received greater recognition in England than in Australia, being an Oxbridge man.

Apart from several incidents of racism in the courts and at the Victorian Bar, I must confess that I was accepted by some members of the Victorian Bar quite warmly. I will set out the incidents of racism later on when I recount my experiences at the Victorian Bar and in the Law Courts. However, just as Abrahams pointed out, for my part, in the legal profession in Melbourne, the powers that be had led me to the trough many times, but had not permitted me to drink from it.

Neither my dear friend and mentor, the late Louis Voumard QC, nor I were ever considered fit to be appointed to the Supreme Court in Victoria, although we were outstanding barristers, because we did not have the proper social and political connections. Many others far less able were elevated to that high office because they had the right connections.

When I finished writing this work, I gave it to my dear friend Ross Howie SC to review it. He reminded me of the sign that appeared on Olde English Inns -“Good wine needs no bush” He said that it was for others to talk about my ability.Nonetheless, I would like to tell you about some of the things I feel most proud of in my life.

In 1996, I published my work Voumard: The Sale of Land as a supplemental book and sent a complimentary copy to Mr Douglas Grahame QC, the Solicitor-General for the State of Victoria. I received a warm letter from him in which he stated that the Victorian legal profession owed me a debt of gratitude, not only for writing this work but for doing so to the same high standard maintained by the late Louis Voumard QC.

In 1999, I wrote Conveyancing Manual Victoria with Dan Fitzgerald, and asked Mr Justice Robert Brooking, one of the great commercial judges in the Supreme Court of Victoria, whether he would honour me by writing a preface for this work. His Honour agreed, and not only did he write a preface for this work but gave high praise of my knowledge of property law.

In 2008, Mr Justice Peter Young, the Chief Judge of the Court of Equity in New South Wales, and a few years later a member of the Court of Appeal in New South Wales, caused a survey to be made of the top twenty legal books written in Australia, and had this survey published in the Australian Law Journal in July 2008. His Honour included my work Voumard: The Sale of Land in this list. It must be noted that none of the other works on property law were included in this list, although the authors of these works received judicial appointments.

In 2011, 1 was invited by the Chief Justice of Fiji to sit on the Court of Appeal in Fiji. A few years earlier, three distinguished Australian lawyers sat on the same court: Mark Weinberg QC, later Mr Justice Weinberg of the Court of Appeal in Victoria, Mr Justice Handley of the Court of Appeal in New South Wales, and Mr Justice Mason, a justice of the Court of Appeal in New South Wales. Although I run the risk of repetition, I need only add that a number of writers of minor works on property law have all received judicial appointments.

I must state categorically that I am neither angry nor bitter about this, for I have learned to accept the fact there are certain things in life that cannot be changed. In Melbourne, at least, the legal profession and Victorian legal powers that be are still not colour-blind, for they will not recognize the fact that an Asian man or woman has any talent or ability. In Australia, things are upside down. In England I am a WOG – a Worthy Oriental Gentleman -which is not a term of approbation but a patronizing reference to people from the Indian sub-continent. In Australia, this word is used with reference to southern Europeans.

Here, people from China and the Far East, in deference to their American cousins, are called Asians although they come from the Far East and not from Asia. Columbus set off to look for the spice trade in Asia – India and Sri Lanka – not China and Vietnam. The Portuguese found these Asian lands in 1506 when Vasco de Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and arrived on the west coast of India. China and Vietnam are in the Far East.

And by the way, another coincidence with Harold Abrahams was the fact that a relation of his, Sir Sidney Abrahams, was Chief justice of Ceylon from 1937 to 1939. The British government did not believe that a Sri Lankan was capable of holding such a high office and never appointed a Sri Lankan as Chief justice of the Island of Ceylon.The fourth coincidence was an Australian connection that was thrown into this strange mix.

In 1936, a young Australian by the name of Mark Anthony Lyster Bracegirdle arrived in Ceylon to work on a tea plantation and learn the trade of a tea planter. He went to the Relugas Estate in Madulkelle near Matale in Ceylon and began his life in Ceylon on that estate.

He was appalled at the inhumane conditions of the Indian Tamil labourers and collaborated with the LSSP (Lanka Sama Samaja Party), the Trotskyite Party in Ceylon (popularly known as the Fox Trotskyite party), to organize protest meetings against this inhumane treatment. These Indian Tamils were indentured labourers who were brought by the British from South India in the middle of the nineteenth century to labour on their plantations in Ceylon, as the Sinhalese refused to work on them.

The slave trade had recently been abolished in England as a result of the exertions of Wilberforce, and the British needed alternative cheap labour. These labourers had to walk from South India, then cross the Palk Strait to get to north-western Ceylon, and then walk several hundred miles from the north of the Island to the tea plantations in the hill country. During these marches, many thousands died along the way. The British took these South Indian ‘coolies’ to labour in Fiji, the West Indies and South Africa, and except in Sri Lanka, where they are still coolies, these labourers are now an integral part of the higher echelons of society in these countries.

The word “coolie” is what the British called them. The West Indies has produced some great cricketers from the descendants of these indentured labourers with the likes of Alvin Kallicharran, Rohan Kanhai, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, among others. They also have risen to social prominence in Fiji, South Africa and the West Indies.

When I returned to Ceylon in 1958, my father and two of his friends owned a 900-acre tea plantation in Maskeliya called “Theberton Estate.” Maskeliya is 3,000 feet above sea level and has a cool temperate climate somewhat akin to Melbourne in May. In 1963, the Indian Tamil labourers on the estate struck for better living conditions. I was briefed to go up to Maskeliya to appear in a mediation in an attempt to settle this industrial dispute. I visited the “lines”, the living quarters of the estate workers, and was appalled at their living conditions. They were living in corrugated iron sheds, with many families to a shed.

There were no beds for them and they slept on the cold cement floor with no blankets or sheets. The families were separated from each other by wooden partitions which offered no privacy at all. There was no heating and no hot water. There were a few taps of cold water and a few latrines in each shed.

I was intent on improving their working conditions and made a number of concessions at the mediation but, to my surprise, my concessions were rejected by the directors, including my father. One of the other owners, who was a senior lawyer, appeared at the next mediation and rejected my recommendations. The strike was broken and no change was made in the living conditions of the workers.

To return to my story, the British inhabitants of Ceylon were furious that their standing in the country was being damaged by a fellow “white man”. They prevailed upon the British Colonial Governor, Sir Reginald Stubbs, to have Bracegirdle deported. He agreed and signed the deportation order on April 22, 1937, giving Bracegirdle 48 hours to leave the island on the SS Mooltan. The LSSP hid Bracegirdle from the police, but he was located and arrested a short time later. A Writ of Habeas Corpus was served on the Colonial government by Bracegirdle’s lawyers.

The case came up for hearing before the Chief Justice, Sir Sidney Abrahams, and two Burgher judges of Dutch descent, whose ancestors had migrated to Ceylon from Holland many years before. One of the Dutch Burgher judges was Mr Justice Maartensz. Ceylon’s leading lawyer. H V Perera KC, who was instrumental in shaping the law in Ceylon for nigh on 50 years, was briefed to appear for Bracegirdle.

Mr Perera was Ceylon’s equivalent of Sir Owen Dixon in Australia. He opened his case by informing the judges that Bracegirdle had renounced his Australian citizenship and if he was deported by the Colonial government, he would have no country to go to and would have to roam the world as a stateless person.Hearing this statement, Mr Justice Maartensz piped up, “What you are saying, Mr Perera, is that he will be like the wandering Jew.”

Quick as a flash, Sir Sidney Abrahams came back with the retort: “Or the flying Dutchman’

The court ordered Bracegirdle’s release, holding that there was no merit in the deportation order. In 1938 he left Ceylon to live out his days in England. After the war, Bracegirdle qualified as an engineer and settled in Gloucestershire. He died on June 2, 1999. The case is reported in (1937) 39 New Law Report at 193.

Sir Sidney Abrahams returned to England in 1939. Although I run the risk of repetition, in colonial Ceylon the Chief Justice was always an Englishman, because the Colonial government believed that the natives weren’t competent enough to hold such a high appointment.

The beginning

My tale is a long one and, as Maria said in The Sound of Music, “Let’s start at the very beginning”. Let me go back to the month of August 1954 when I was 21-years old and was letting life slip through my fingers. I was not interested in studying and spent my evenings at the Sinhalese Sports Club running up expensive club liquor bills which, surprisingly, my father paid.

About this time, my father met a friend of his, Sir Ivor Jennings, who had been the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ceylon and who had recently been appointed Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Sir Ivor promised Dad that if I passed my GCE A Level and the Trinity Hall entrance examination, he would give me a place at Trinity Hall.

This was well-nigh impossible for someone like me who had not, at the age of 21, passed the GCE A Level which was a two-year course. I then had to to sit for a place at Trinity Hall, the most exclusive college in Cambridge, and compete with more than 300 of the best students in England for one place in a 100. Trinity Hall had only 300 students for the three years of its graduate courses, compared to Kings College and Trinity College which had more than 1,500 students in each College.

We arrived in England in September and I enrolled at the University Tutorial College in London to prepare for the GCE A Level. The exam was at the end of November; I had just over two months to prepare for it. Two of the subjects were completely new – Economics and Economic History. It was then that a miracle happened. When I enrolled at the college, I was assigned a tutor. We hit it off straight away. He was a former Polish fighter pilot who had flown Spitfire planes during the World War II, a Mr Matuczeski. Not since my kindergarten days had I met a teacher who was interested in my welfare and been kind to me. I looked forward to my twice weekly tutorials with him, and with his guidance, I passed the examination in December.

My next hurdle was in February 1955: the Trinity Hall entrance examination. My first paper on General Knowledge was a complete failure, or so I thought. I had to answer five questions and I spent nearly two hours on one question, writing a long dissertation on one of my heroes Salah al-Din or Saladin as he was known to the Occidentals. I went into raptures about this magnificent Seldjuk Turk leader. It was only later that I learned that the professors were astonished that a young Sinhalese boy from the East knew so much about Saladin.

Next I had to go for a viva voce examination. It was held by a distinguished gentleman who sat at a desk taking notes. On the side of the table sat a jolly old gentleman. I was laughing and chatting with the old man and very obsequious towards the gentleman at the desk. It was only later I learned that the jolly old man was the great Tell Ellis-Lewis, the editor of Winfield on Tort, and the distiguished gentleman seated at the desk was his assistant. Anyway, I passed the entrance examination and got my place at Trinity Hall.

(To be continued)

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Features

Childhood depression: A psychosocial perspective

Published

11 hours ago

2025/11/10

Thilina Walpola

Image courtesy www.stlpr.org

Recent findings reveal a troubling reality about the mental well-being of Sri Lankan children. According to a study cited in The Island on 12, 2025, nearly 60 percent of school students in the country experience symptoms of depression, with 24 percent of senior students showing significant symptoms.

Speaking at a World Mental Health Day event in Colombo, Professor Miyuru Chandradasa, President of the Sri Lanka College of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, identified academic pressure, parental conflict, social media exposure, and physical abuse as key contributors to this growing crisis.

Though I have not had direct access to the research data, the reported figures alone paint a deeply worrying picture. They demand not only public reflection but also urgent action. These are our future citizens, and their mental well-being today will shape the moral and social fabric of our nation tomorrow.

I read with great interest the article “Childhood Depression: A Critical Issue” (The Island, 27 October, 2025), by Geewananda Gunawardana PhD, my fellow alumnus from the University of Peradeniya, whose insights on the harmful impact of social media use among children are both timely and persuasive. My purpose here is to extend that conversation by exploring the psychosocial dimensions of this silent epidemic.

Formative years of childhood and adolescence constitute a critical period for physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. The emotional well-being of children requires a nurturing environment – a space that provides safety, support and love, enabling to feel secure, valued and encouraged to explore and learn.

The Family Milieu

A nurturing family environment forms the cornerstone of emotional well-being. Children thrive in homes that balance love with discipline, structure with freedom, and guidance with understanding. Unfortunately, modern life increasingly undermines this balance. Many parents, pressured by demanding work schedules or compelled to seek employment abroad, struggle to devote time and attention to their children.

For families separated by migration, emotional bonds weaken, leaving children vulnerable to loneliness and confusion. Economic necessity, while understandable, has created a generation growing up with emotional instability.

Parental conflict, inconsistent discipline, and poor role modelling, further compound the problem. Without stability at home, a child’s emotional resilience erodes, often manifesting as anxiety, irritability, or withdrawal.

The Educational Environment

Education is meant to nurture the mind and spirit. Yet for many Sri Lankan children, the school experience has become a relentless race. The culture of excessive tuition — driven by parental anxiety and competition — leaves little room for creativity, recreation, or social development.

While targeted academic support has its value, the obsession with results has turned childhood into a cycle of stress and exhaustion. The absence of vocational alternatives and career paths and the uneven distribution of quality educational facilities across the country further add to the pressure.

A more balanced approach is essential — one that values emotional well-being alongside academic achievement.

Safety and Discipline

The Island reported on 05 October, 2025, that crimes against children — including physical and sexual abuse, murder, and exploitation — have increased alarmingly over the past three years, according to the National Audit Office.

In many households and schools, corporal punishment remains justified as a means of “discipline,” often under the guise of being “for the child’s own good.” Yet decades of research have shown that such punishment inflicts deep psychological scars. It diminishes self-esteem, impairs social skills, and contributes to long-term emotional instability.

A culture of empathy, active listening, and firm but compassionate guidance must replace the outdated notion that fear produces respect.

The Digital Dimension

Today’s children are “digital natives” — immersed in a world of screens, social media, and virtual connections. While technology can enhance learning and creativity, it also exposes children to inappropriate content, misinformation, cyberbullying, predatory algo rhythms and privacy risks.

Without adequate parental supervision and open communication, children may retreat into the virtual world, leading to social isolation and mental strain. Those already feeling alienated from family are particularly at risk of self-harm when bullied online.

Parents must take responsibility by setting boundaries, monitoring online activity, and encouraging real-world interaction through creative and recreational pursuits. Parents, not algo rhythms, should guide children. As several nations have adopted, setting a minimum age for accessing social media should be considered.

Understanding Childhood Depression

Depression is often misunderstood as a simple extension of sadness. In clinical terms, it is a persistent lowering of mood, accompanied by changes in thought, behaviour, and body function — such as sleep or appetite disturbances.

Diagnosing depression in children is complex, as symptoms vary by age and developmental stage. Younger children may not articulate sadness but may show behavioural changes — loss of interest, irritability, school refusal, or unexplained physical complaints.

Adolescents may express their distress through apathy, irritability, poor concentration, or substance misuse. The hormonal and social turbulence of adolescence heightens their vulnerability.

While many cases respond well to counselling and cognitive-behavioural interventions, medication may be required for carefully selected cases of older adolescents with major depression. In all cases, family involvement remains central to recovery.

Beyond Treatment — Toward Systemic Change

As Professor Chandradasa has rightly emphasised, the role of the psychiatric profession is to present the facts honestly and to treat affected individuals effectively. But beyond individual therapy lies a broader social challenge — the urgent need for systemic change.

Childhood depression on this scale reflects a deeper societal malaise — the erosion of family stability, inequities in education, economic strain, and a breakdown of community values. Addressing these root causes requires cohesive policy planning, inter-sectoral collaboration, and above all, political will.

Mental health cannot be treated in isolation from social health. If the next generation is to inherit a society worth living in, we must rebuild the environments — at home, in school, and in the digital space — that nurture rather than diminish the human spirit.

A Call to Conscience

Childhood should be a time of discovery, security, and joy — not anxiety, alienation, and despair. The rising tide of depression among children is not merely a medical issue; it is a national crisis that demands moral reflection and collective action.

Our deepest desire, as a society, should be simple yet profound: to see our children happy.

by Dr. Siri Galhenage ✍️
MBBS, DPM, MRCPsych, FRANZCP.
Psychiatrist [Retd]
sirigalhenage@gmail.com

Features

World Science Day: What constrains our scientific advancement?

Published

12 hours ago

2025/11/10

Thilina Walpola

The world celebrates science today. The United Nations proclaimed November 10^th World Science Day for Peace and Development in 2001. Since then, different themes of global importance have been emphasised each year with activities conducted worldwide to focus the attention of the public and policymakers. The theme this year is Trust, Transformation and Science for Tomorrow.

How did science originate and transform the world? What constrains instilling science in society? And what science do we have to pursue today to manage the 2050s?

The human species transformed through three distinctive steps, driven by forces of organic evolution and linguistic communication; empirical technologies and beliefs; and finally, science and science-based technologies. Linguistic communication sharpened thinking – a much older trait humans possessed – empowering empirical technologies and indulgence in beliefs. Technologies, learned by experience and improved by trial and error, increased the production of commodities.

Tools and implements reduced the burden of manual labour, providing people with little relief of leisure. They pondered how the world they see and the good and the bad they experience arise. A straightforward conclusion was that agents like them, but extraordinarily superior (gods), ordered everything.

Thales of Miletus

A remarkable feature of human society is the opinion of an outstanding individual, influences its transformation. The Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus (620 -545 BCE) was one such exceptional person. He argued natural phenomena are not the works of gods; they are correlated and have cause and effect. Thales’s assertion gained acceptance; amidst controversy and opposition, more and more observational facts were explained as natural consequences.

Beginning in the early 1700s, it became clear the only avenue available for us to unravel the secrets of nature is the scientific method – not a belief, but a method as has been said. Observations or experiments, asking questions, setting up hypothesis and further experimentation to confirm or refute the hypothesis. The approach paved the way for generalisations (theories) possessing predictive power. If predictions are disproved, the theory is discarded or amended.

Reasoning based on the scientific method converted empirical technologies into plannable engineering. Solved critical problems confronting humankind and made new discoveries. Engines powered by coal, oil and electricity increased production a thousandfold. Transport and communication systems emerged. Ways were found to control and cure human disease. The result was a striking improvement in the quality of life and a consequential increase in the population.

Beginning in the 1800s, the world population increased steeply as an outcome of scientific advancement. Automotive machines facilitated the production and transport of goods. Scientific understanding improved health and sanitation. The invention of the Haber–Bosch process to produce synthetic nitrogenous fertiliser in 1909 triggered an explosive population increase, from 1.6 billion to 6.2 billion in 2000. Previously, agricultural production was limited by a shortage of nitrogen fertiliser. Fertilisers and the introduction of high-yielding crops (Green Revolution) relieved widespread starvation. Today, 8.2 billion men, women and children live on this planet. Projections say the number will reach 9.8 billion in 2050.

Science not only increased the population but also continuously uplifted our comforts. The discovery of semiconductors transformed electronics by providing so many new appliances, the computers, smartphones, solar cells used at home, and machines for automating infrastructure and industry. Remedies were found to cure and control dreadful diseases. It was the understanding of things that pushed the progress steps further.

In 2017, the Swedish physician and statistician, Hans Rosling, suffering from pancreatic cancer and terminally ill, presented evidence and claimed, “The world is better now than it used to be 50 years ago.”

Excessive proliferation of species

Will this trend continue? When a species proliferates excessively, the opposing forces take over and limit expansion. The human population has enlarged disproportionately above other species because of science and technology. The indication is that we are approaching the limits. Over – exploitation of resources causes irreversible degradation of the environment and pollution. It is not clear whether the complete elimination of emissions by 2050 would be achievable. Other forms of pollution, originating from industries, agriculture and domestic activities, continuously escalate, overburdening remediation procedures. As resources deplete, how to provide food, energy, and amenities to a huge population? When population increases and resources exhaust, conflicts propagate. New technologies introduced disturb social equilibrium, creating new problems.

Science is not everything. Art, literature, cultural traditions and ethics taught by religions matter. Yet evidence-based analysis of issues to seek explanations and find solutions is the proven and reliable method available to resolve problems we envisage would confront us in the future. Individual and social organisations need to be convinced that no other option exists.

Do the public, policymakers, professionals, including persons officially designated as scientists, follow the scientific method in reasoning and actions? It is hard to conduct surveys to determine whether people trust science. However, surveys have been conducted to assess whether people trust scientists. The answer had been statistically affirmative. A larger percentage of people agree they trust scientists. Surveys have also been carried out to determine whether people believe in astrology. Here again, a good number believe and subscribe to astrology. Strangely, many in our region highly trust both scientists and astrologers. A blind, self-contradictory mindset.

Mars and fallacy

For them, Mars is simultaneously an object similar to Earth with mountains and dried riverbeds as, clear from photographs and a malefic agent who wishfully endures assertiveness of command to inflict conflicts! One might argue that Mars is an object similar to the Earth and Mars exerts malefic influence on humans are mutually exclusive statements and therefore not inconsistent. A fallacy which logicians refer to as argumentum ad ignorantiam – the absence of evidence to prove Mars doesn’t behave as a malefic agent taken as evidence for the validity of the second statement. Science endows a vast amount of correlated information to arrive at conclusions. That information fails to see a connection or envisage a connection between human conflicts and Mars.

People consider science as something useful and trust those who possess science-based skills and deliver useful materials and tasks. They concurrently believe in astrology and other superstitions because they have not assimilated science as a method for explanatory and evidence-based analysis of problems and finding solutions. Assimilating science in the above spirit was named “scientific temper’’ by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who said:

“What is needed is the scientific approach, the adventurous and yet critical temper of science, the search for truth and new knowledge, the refusal to accept anything without testing and trial, the capacity to change previous conclusions in the face of new evidence, the reliance on observed fact and not on pre-conceived theory, the hard discipline of the mind—all this is necessary, not merely for the application of science but for life itself and the solution of its many problems.”

Scientific method

Meanings of the terms scientific method, scientific inquiry and scientific temper differ. Scientific method is the rigorous procedure of examining evidence, framing a hypothesis and carrying out experimentation to verify or refute the assertion aiming at a generalisation. Scientific inquiry refers to the broader concept of questioning issues curiously in light of existing knowledge, seeking explanations and if such explanations are not possible, the realization of the necessity of new knowledge. Scientific temper is the convinced acceptance of scientific inquiry as the right method to address issues. Trust in science implies possession of scientific temper.

Resolution of predicaments we would encounter in future requires more efficient and widespread use of existing science and generating new scientific knowledge. The inescapable prerequisite is inculcation of scientific temper in society. So many challenges that seemed irresolvable in instants past were subsequently resolved by science. We need to be confident of this fact and trust science.

What constrains instilling the scientific temper in our society? It is the attitude of considering science only as something useful and making decisions based on beliefs. Education has not succeeded in transforming our society into a culture thinking otherwise. It highlights the usefulness of science and not the explanatory power. Policymakers see only the material usefulness of science and frame policies accordingly.

It is not necessary to have a degree in science to acquire a scientific temper. General education should introduce science as a way of thinking that clears the mind away from myth. Our teachers do not talk about the folly of astrology in lessons about constellations! Although in the Kalama Sutra, Buddha said to question everything and not accept anything unless you are convinced. Parents and teachers discourage children from questioning religious teachings. Perhaps the ‘establishment’ advocates punishing children to prevent them from asking such questions.

Quack and alternative medicines confuse the public. To obliterate the issue, we need to educate people on how modern drugs are tested for use. If existing knowledge and laboratory experiments suggest a compound may be efficacious as a drug to cure a sickness. Pills containing the compound or a placebo (harmless inactive compound) are randomly administered to a group of patients following a procedure. If the patients who have taken the drug show statistically significant improvement in contrast to the placebo, the drug could be promising and warrants further randomised trials. If both sets of patents were cured. It is more likely that the procedure, not the drug, that cured the disease. In many alternative medicines, the attraction is not even a placebo effect but advertising and hearsay. Generally, in today’s context, experimental results alone would not be sufficient to confirm efficacy. A convincing theoretical argument is required to explain why the drug works and is safe. We have experienced adverse repercussions of not adhering to the scientific method – alternative medicines for Covid and alternative fertilisers for agriculture.

Scientific breakthroughs

‘Our scientific activities have not achieved much success in nurturing and directing minds towards scientific inquiry. Education and research incline excessively towards technology, ignoring fundamental science. Policymakers think such adjustments of the curriculum would deliver more innovations. The outcome is just the opposite; we remain poor in innovations.

All major scientific breakthroughs have arisen from untiring effort to understand things and not making things. With understanding, you make better things. Without understanding, you either copy or make substandard things.

In framing policies, we should keep in mind that today’s fundamental science brings forth technology for tomorrow. The American mathematical physicist Robert Dijkgraaff, a former director of the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, once said, “These days we are able to deal with diseases at the molecular level, only because 50 years ago we allowed scientists to ask basic questions about the foundations of life. Basic research is not a cost. It is an investment that in the end will allow us to be much more cost effective.”

To face the challenges of tomorrow, we should scale up basic science awareness, education and research today. In years to come, many of the issues resolvable using existing knowledge will be taken up by AI, shifting the human resource market in favour of those skilled in generation of new knowledge – people competent in basic science skills.

Sri Lanka stands weak in fundamental science in education, research and dissemination activities – fundamental studies in modern context virtually absent and not encouraged. Science education in schools prepares students to learn techniques and pass examinations and the tuition they buy goes to the extreme of that art. Universities and research institutions increasingly emphasise technological aspects of science, lessening the basic component.

The primary purpose of education is not learning to know things or do things, but to understand things. Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate and one of the founders of quantum mechanics, said his success owed much to his father. When he was a child, fathers insisted on the importance of understanding and not merely knowing things. Though a salesman of tailored uniforms, he possessed a scientific temper. Understanding qualifies one to do big things and make big things!

Research conducted in our institutions is largely incremental and grand challenges rarely undertaken. We are short of thinkers of the caliber who care nothing except curious inquiry and have not succeeded in turning ample exceptional talent in the country in that direction. We need institutions that accommodate persons of that brand.

An article titled “Promoting Science Day. An important Day in Today’s Society” in the “superprof. blog”, succinctly depicts the purpose of World Science Day as:

“Albert Einstein. Marie Curie. Stephen Hawking. Nikola Tesla. Rosalind Franklin. Alexander Graham Bell. Benjamin Franklin. What do the very talented people mentioned above have in common? They were all scientists who dedicated their lives to uncovering fundamental truths for us to understand the world better. Defined as a systematic enterprise that organises knowledge in the form of explanations and predictions, science has been around forever and is not quite going anywhere. So, to raise awareness about the ever-important academic discipline of science and all that it entails, World Science Day was established. “

World Science Day and the following Science Week activities will serve the purpose intended if they are conducted in the intellectual spirit of the above quote, rather than a routine yearly affair. World Science Day is a reminder for us to examine constraints impeding our scientific advancement and initiate necessary action.

(Author can be reached via ktenna@yahoo.co.uk)

by Prof. Kirthi Tennakone ✍️

Features

New York and America rebuke Trump

Published

1 day ago

2025/11/9

Thilina Walpola

The Democratic Socialist Trio: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Zoran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders

New York, New York … City that doesn’t sleep … king of the hill, top of the heap … where if you make it, you can make it anywhere – made the most sensational news this week, but not for anything the paean of a song that John Kander wrote and Frank Sinatra immortalized. It made news by electing Zoran Mamdani, a 34 year American citizen of colour without borders, as its new Mayor and giving more than a little jolt to every scaffolding of all the political, cultural and economic structures of the American establishment. The jolt may not come to mean anything in any final outcome, but it is impossible to miss the moment of its occurrence.

Mamdani’s election on Tuesday, October 4th, was the most dramatic rebuke to Trump, but it was not the only one. In multiple elections in New Jersey, Virjinia, Pennsylvania, Georgia and California, the voters decisively turned against Trump and his executive overreaches. It is not the numbers of votes that matter but the restive vibes that are finally permeating America’s body politic. It certainly builds on and extends the momentum created by the No Kings protests held across America in June, July and October.

Dick Cheney’s Legacy

On Monday, the day before the vote, former Vice President Dick Cheney passed away. Cheney is considered to be the most powerful Vice President in modern American history and was the architect of the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq that marred the presidency of Bush the younger and precipitated the presidency first of Barack Obama a progressive centrist and later that of Donald Trump a crass opportunist who has been hugging the extreme right.

Although he vigorously opposed Trump and his methods and publicly supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, Cheney was the original champion of the concept of unitary president that Trump is now stretching to ridiculous and dangerous limits through his executive orders. There is an esoteric debate among online pundits as to who has done greater damage to the American political system – Cheney or Trump?

I put that question to my daughter, Menaka, a political theorist, and her ready response was that there are different levels of bad and evil and that it is all there – in The Eighteenth Brumaire! Who better than Marx for diagnosing historic facts and personages? History alternates between farce and tragedy and the traditions of the dead weigh down on the brains of the living.

But then, as the Mayor elect Mamdani gallantly quoted Jawaharlal Nehru in his victory speech in New York: “A moment comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

” The quote is from Nehru’s celebrated midnight independence speech in 1947 made impromptu without text, notes or teleprompter, immediately following the more memorable line: “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.”

Quoting Nehru in New York may not go down well in today’s New Delhi, and ‘that is how things are’ today. But fellow Indian American and Democratic Congressman from California, Ro Khanna, has welcomed it as a sign of Mamdani’s authenticity. Khanna, a respected Congressman, identifies himself as a Progressive Capitalist, but wholeheartedly supports the New York exploits of Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist.

Quoting Nehru is also indicative of the new Mayor’s home schooling and the influence of his parents Mahmood Mamdani and Mira Nair, respectively, of Gujarati Muslim and Punjabi Hindu origins. His father is an academic in postcolonial studies, who gave Zoran his middle name, Kwame, after Africa’s first postcolonial leader, the charismatic Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. Zoran’s mother is the celebrated filmmaker of Mississippi Masala.

Born in Kampala, Uganda, lived in Johannesburg, South Africa and finally settled in New York, Zoran Nkrumah Mamdani is the quintessential millennial without borders. An activist from his Bronx school days in New York, and Bowden University days in Maine, Zoran is a talented communicator, writer, musician, rap singer and filmmaker. He is the consummate activist artist rather than the ideal philosopher politician. But his artistic talents and media skills have served him well in making the biggest political splash on the world’s biggest city stage.

Trump and Mamdani

The Economist (November 1st) is touting it as “The battle for New York”, between the Mayor elect Mamdani and the City’s enfant terrible of a son, now US President, Donald Trump – “two skillful politicians with radical plans.” Trump’s plans are coming home to roost much sooner than anyone may have thought. And there are scores of highly placed doubters as to whether any of Mamdani’s socialist plans will ever pass in the citadel of capitalism.

The Mamdani manifesto – promising free daycare, free transit, affordable groceries, $30 minimum wage, and moratorium on rent, all paid by taxing wealthy, has resonated resoundingly with New York voters, giving him over 50% of the vote, and good margin wins in four of New York’s five boroughs, with over 60% of young New Yorkers voting for him.

But the establishment powers and voters over 65 are skeptical about him, about his promises and his ability to deliver them. There is no underestimating the challenge facing him, although Mamdani’s policies are not infeasible or impractical. They have been implemented in many European countries, and Mamdani himself has alluded to a form of Scandinavian socialism as appropriate for New York.

But many in the New York city administration support him and he has reached out to those with municipal experience to lead the transition to office before he is sworn in as Mayor on January 1. The transition is all women with impressive background and credentials and includes the widely known and respected former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan in the Biden Administration. She would bring heft to the legal and fiscal side of the new administration when it comes to taxation and pushing back on President Trump’s illegal threat to stop the flow of federal funds to the City.

But for all his haranguing about Mamdani’s candidacy and mayorship, Trump may not have the time or the means to take the fight to Mamdani. He already has too many other fires to worry about, all of them he created and which are now coming back to burn him. He and the Republican Party will of course try to use Mamdani and his brand of democratic socialism as the new face of the Democratic Party to scare away the American voters. They already did in Tuesday’s elections but got beaten anyway.

The Democratic Party is also divided at the top in spite of the experiential unity and solidarity among the people at every layer that is below the establishment. The brahmins of the party have generally kept a safe distance from Mamdani. But the progressive socialists who have mostly been a bank bench force in the party, except during presidential primaries, openly embraced Mamdani and have now become a national force that the party establishment has to reckon with.

Bernie Sanders and AOC have been supporting Mamdani from the beginning and his victory in New York opens a new chapter for American progressivism. Rather than Mamdani becoming Trump’s political whipping boy, it is Trump who is making himself to be the galvanizer of all Americans who want America to be inclusive in its promises to everyone who chooses to live there.

by Rajan Philips ✍️