Features
Unresolved Tamil Issue

by Gnana Moonesinghe
The failure of the Tamil ‘liberation’ movement is the failure to understand how the Tamil problem should be reviewed and tackled in today’s context. To me, the first issue is to understand if the Tamils consider their minority status a de facto reality. If they do, then they have to work within the limitations imposed by their minority status in society. This, they must understand in all its implications.
It is true that this nation has a majority Sinhalese population and minority Tamil, Muslim, and Burgher populations. These minorities are defined by their relatively smaller numbers in comparison to the majority; but this demographic factor should not pose any impediment to the concept of their equity placement vis-à-vis the people of Sri Lanka as defined in the law of the land guided primarily by the Constitution.
Reconciliation is the need of the hour
This should be a time for reflection. The state, at great cost to life and property, has successfully put down Tamil terrorism. It is, however, time for the leadership to rethink the strategies that have been followed, during and after the war. At a time of violence damage to life and property will and did happen. Kith and kin disappeared but what is in contention is why no attempt is made to track down the victims of war in order to give redress to their relatives. Instead, if celebrations of the war victory continues and homage is only paid to the armed forces as war heroes withou any strategy for reconciliation, discontent will prevail among the defeated.
To formulate strategies to overcome past problems would be one obvious way to resolve or perhaps narrow the divide that exists today in our society. At least it would serve as a demonstration of goodwill to a grieving population. It is true that the Tamil community was responsible for the outbreak of violence but it must be added that they were also acting under grave provocation. Bringing Sinhala-only legislation provoked the Tamils who had previously, on their own initiative, introduced Sinhala as a subject in the school curriculum.
Education is a subject close to the heart of the Tamils as their livelihood was dependent on securing government jobs. Other sources of earning income were limited in the North. Therefore, when the government introduced standardization it angered many who considered this an act of discrimination against them, adding fuel to the existing fire within the community.
No land, no jobs, no income.
Poverty levels have always been high but since the conflict many households have lost their male earning members; consequently these households are headed by women. There are many thousands of widows in the province; their husbands have perished in the war. Many of the lands as well as some lucrative businesses have been taken away from the residents, leaving them without recourse to their traditional sources of employment and income. True some lands have since been returned. But many languish without title to their previously owned property and this leads to much heartburn and resentment.
Jobs are not forthcoming in this atmosphere of negativity, and wealth creation in the Northern Province has reached an all time low, especially now with the COVID pandemic raging. Hitherto, the relief for the poor, especially those without security to offer lenders, has led to loans taken at extortionate interest. Microfinance has been tarnished as the worst among the loan sharks and branded an unsuitable source of relief to the needy. Some women approached an NGO and requested a minimal Rs. 5,000 to start a lunch delivery home industry and another indicated that if she had a sewing machine she could be self-sufficient. Unfortunately, that NGO had ceased to be in operation soon after and could not be of further assistance. With no hope for relief, the poor are left with no recourse.
This is one of the reasons why it is said that the Tamil leaders have let the people down. These leaders who have been elected in the hopes of offering avenues of assistance to their constituents, do not seem to have an agenda or a plan setting out methods of ameliorating the poor living conditions of the people. It is in this context that one despairs about funds granted to the chief minister to help the people of the North had been returned unused to the Treasury.
The politicians seem to be mostly fighting for power, ignoring the needs of the people whom they are expected to uplift by identifying needs by interaction with the needy and the grant of seed money to help start-up projects by the poor. Tamil leaders failed to perform this service, instead permitting the armed forces and commercial interests to occupy that space.
Credit was granted at offensively high interest rates which the recipients could not cope with and the people were in a worse plight than earlier. Consequently, there is an attack on micro financing as a poor relief enabling system. This reading is a result of the misunderstanding of micro -financing methodology.
Despite the multiple tragedies the Tamils are facing, the leadership continues in their one track pursuit of power and in the process endangering democracy within Tamil society. To stay in power the local leaders use a ‘divide and rule’ tactic not only among themselves but also within the TULF, their parent body. The Chief Minister of Jaffna has broken links with them and resorted to building his own base seeking to exclude the leaders who introduced him to the Northern Province. Whether this will enable the desired results or not, the future will unfold. But at the recent elections Tamil parties suffered losses to the benefit of the SLFP in what would have hitherto been a very hostile atmosphere.
There has been a significant impact by the introduction of military personnel to civilian positions both in the center and the provinces. Responsibility for this has to be cast on the political leadership that has fiddled while Rome burnt. Clearly, the Tamil and Sinhala politicians are not providing the necessary leadership vital in this context. Instead they are playing ‘cheap’ politics of invoking fear by making military appointments to certain positions previously occupied by civilian administrators who successfully discharged their responsibilities until the emasculation of democratic administrative systems. Or they are pitching one group against another causing greater turmoil among the people.
As a result of poor leadership and poor management of administrative affairs the rift in racial relations has surfaced again despite the example of the consequences of the LTTE’s war with the State. This time around it seems to be the minority Muslims who are at the receiving end.
The LTTE leadership was hostile to the Muslims living in the North for generations. Hostile being a rather harsh word to use, it may be better said that the Tamils did not engage with the Muslims culturally and there was a tendency by the upper caste Tamils to look upon them unfavorably. Could it have been due to the desire to be rid of the Muslims in order to make the peninsula a Tamil only place? This will remain a matter of conjecture for a long time.
In the meantime, the Sinhala majority with its penchant for getting rid of all minorities got into a tangle for a while with the Muslims until it exploded into the Easter Sunday bombings. Since then, there has been no open Sinhala-Muslim hostile engagement s. Violence ceased but there has been no strategies or policies for reconciliation.
Provincial Council?
In this context reference has to be made to the provincial councils
even if this be unpalatable to some. The PCs were created as administrative/political institutions that will have more powers to guide the destiny of the people in the North. But the NPC has become irrelevant because of the preoccupation of civil society and other leaders with widening its powers rather than prioritizing strategies to consolidate its present position and produce a viable work plan for the North. It is essential to device a program of action to ameliorate or at least reduce minority grievances and help the Northern Province to identify with the nation state.
It was with this in mind, and also the need for a uniform system of administration that the PCs, originally meant only for the Tamil provinces, was implemented countrywide. They have become white elephants merely replicating existing local government institutions sometimes less efficiently. The PCs have become training grounds for politicians aspiring to enter Parliament. Should the country carry such colossal expenditure to support a system such as this? In all honesty it must be said that at the beginning there was no demand for provincial councils except in the Tamil areas. But the system was replicated in all other areas for the sake of uniformity. Or as Minister Lalith Athulathmudali said long ago, “you can’t give Jaffna what you won’t give Hambantota.” Since the system was implemented,, Tamil areas in the North and the East have been demanding more power for the Chief Minister and to the councils.
For any system to function efficiently there has to be sincerity in the conduct of national affairs. For relative peace to be established it would be necessary to have PCs as envisaged by their initiators – to be a via media between the central government and the periphery. Instead it has been transformed into an instrument through which more and more powers are demanded without utilizing the powers in hand for the benefit of the people. The impression created in people’s mind is that there is an unquestionable thirst for more and more power and that the Councils are becoming combative vis-a-vis the central government.
In the midst of all this mayhem it is refreshing to learn that an army officer, Maj. Gen. Dias (retd), had requested the relevant authorities to permit interested Tamils to commemorate their dead the same way it is done in the South. This, he says, will be a just and equitable strategy to adopt which will also stop those who wish to benefit from such denial to gain increased political support. The fact that he has proposed a method of removing misunderstandings and ongoing persistent hostility between the army and Tamil civilians is commendable. The general by merely making this observation has helped clear the air and pave the way for communal harmony.
He had said that in an emergency in predominantly Tamil areas, requests for an ambulance, water bowser or a generator is directed to the army. This makes clear the existence of a relationship of trust between the army and the people in these areas. This friendly vibe must be used to create better relations between the people and the forces. This will certainly contribute to some extent to usher peace in the country and the much needed amity among its people.
There is also a possibility of PCs being able to request and secure additional powers. Powers to do what? That is the relevant question. When nothing is clear, would it then not be better to depend on the cost effective alternative of using existing local government institutions to address social problems? This strategy, if adopted, will put the nation on the road to better social relations and contribute to building sustainable economies in the provinces and the country as a whole.
Features
Have Humanities and Social Sciences muddied water enough?

By Maduranga Kalugampitiya
The domain of the humanities and social sciences is under attack more than ever before. The relevance, as well as usefulness of the degrees earned in those fields, is being questioned left, right, and centre. The question of whether it is meaningful at all to be spending, if not wasting, the limited financial resources available in the coffers to produce graduates in those fields is raised constantly, at multiple levels. Attempts are being made to introduce a little bit of soft skills into the curricula in order to add ‘value’ to the degree programmes in the field. The assumption here is that either such degree programmes do not impart any skills or the skills that they impart are of no value. We often see this widely-shared profoundly negative attitude towards the humanities and the social sciences (more towards the former than towards the latter) being projected on the practitioners (students, teachers, and researchers) in those areas. At a top-level meeting, which was held one to two years ago, with the participation of policy-makers in higher education and academics and educationists representing the humanities and social sciences departments, at state universities, a key figure in the higher education establishment claimed that the students who come to the humanities and social sciences faculties were ‘late-developers’. What better (or should I say worse?) indication of the official attitude towards those of us in the humanities and the social sciences!
While acknowledging that many of the key factors that have resulted in downgrading the humanities and social sciences disciplines are global by nature and are very much part of the neoliberal world order, which dominates the day, I wish to ask if we, the practitioners in the said fields, have done our part to counter the attack.
What the humanities and the social sciences engage with is essentially and self-consciously social. What these disciplines have to say has a direct bearing on the social dimension of human existence. It is near impossible to discuss phenomena in economics, political science, or sociology without having to reflect upon and use examples from what happens in our lives and around us. One cannot even begin to talk about teaching English as a second language without taking a look at her/his own experience learning English and the struggles that many people go through at different levels doing the same. One cannot talk about successful ways of teaching foreign languages without recognizing the need to incorporate an engagement with the cultural life of those languages at some level. No reading of an artwork—be it a novel, a movie, a painting, a sculpture, a poem, whatever—is possible without the reader at least subconsciously reflecting upon the broader context in which those artworks are set and also relating her own context or experience to what is being read. A legal scholar cannot read a legislation without paying attention to the social implications of the legislation and the dynamics of the community at whom that legislation is directed. The point is our own existence as social beings is right in the middle of what we engage with in such disciplines. To steal (and do so self-consciously) a term from the hard/natural sciences, society is essentially the ‘laboratory’ in which those in the humanities and social sciences conduct their work. There may be some areas of study within the humanities and social sciences which do not require an explicit engagement with our social existence, but I would say that such areas, if any, are limited in number.
Needless to say that every social intervention is political in nature. It involves unsettling what appears to be normal about our social existence in some way. One cannot make interventions that have a lasting impact without muddying the water which we have been made to believe is clear. How much of muddying do we as practitioners in the field of humanities and social sciences do is a question that needs to be asked.
Unfortunately, we do not see much work in the humanities and social sciences which unsettles the dominant order. What we often see is work that reinforces and reaffirms the dominant structures, systems, and lines of thought. Lack of rigorous academic training and exposure to critical theory is clearly one of the factors which prevents some scholars in the field from being able to make interventions that are capable of muddying the water, but the fact that we sometimes do not see much muddying even on the part of the more adept scholars shows that lack of rigorous training is not the sole reason.
Muddying the water is no simple matter. To use a problematic, yet in my view useful, analogy, a scholar in the said field trying to make an intervention that results in unsettling the order is like a hydrogen atom in H2O, ‘water’ in layperson’s language, trying to make an intervention which results in a re-evaluation of the oxygen atom. Such an intervention invariably entails a re-evaluation of the hydrogen atom as well, for the reason that the two atoms are part of an organic whole. One cannot be purely objective in its reading of the other. Such an intervention is bound to be as unsettling for the hydrogen atom as it is for the oxygen atom. Similarly, in a majority of contexts, a scholar in the area of the humanities and social sciences cannot make an intervention, the kind that pushes the boundaries of knowledge, without unsettling the dominant structures and value systems, which they themselves are part of, live by, and also benefit from. For instance, the norms, values, and practices which define the idea of marriage in contexts like ours are things that a male scholar would have to deal with as a member of our society, and any intervention on his part which raises questions about gender-based inequalities embodied in such norms, values, and practices would be to question his own privilege. Needless to say that such an intervention could result in an existential crisis for the scholar, at least temporarily. Such interventions also entail the possibility of backlash from society. One needs thorough training to withstand that pressure.
In place of interventions that unsettle the existing order, what we often see is work, which re-presents commonsensical knowledge garbed in jargon. To give an example from an area that I am a bit familiar with, much of the work that takes place in the field of English as a Second Language (ESL) identifies lack of motivation on the part of the students and also teachers and also lack of proper training for teachers as the primary reasons for the plight of English education in the country. This reading is not very different from a layperson’s understanding of the problem, and what we often see as research findings in the field of ESL is the same understanding, albeit dressed up in technical-sounding language. Such readings do not unsettle the existing order. They put the blame on the powerless. Very limited is the work that sees the present plight of English education as a systemic or structural problem. Reading that plight as a systemic problem requires us to re-evaluate the fundamental structures which govern our society, and such re-evaluation is unsettling is many ways. I argue that that is what is expected of scholarship in the ESL field, but unfortunately that is not what we see as coming out of the field.
If what gets produced as knowledge in the humanities and social sciences is jargonized commonsense, then the claim that such fields have nothing important to say is valid. If what a scholar in those fields has to say is not different to a layperson’s understanding of a given reality, the question whether there is any point in producing such scholars becomes valid.
In my view, the humanities and social sciences are in need of fundamental restructuring. This restructuring is not the kind which calls for the incorporation of a bit of soft skills here and a bit of soft skills there so that those who come out of those fields easily fit into predefined slots in society but the kind that results in the enhancement of the critical thinking capacity of the scholars. It is the kind of restructuring that would produce scholars who are capable of engaging in a political reading of the realities that define our existence in society and raise difficult questions about such existence, in other words, scholars who are capable of muddying the water.
(Maduranga Kalugampitiya is attached to Department of English, University of Peradeniya)
Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall thatparodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.
Features
Selective targeting not law’s purpose

By Jehan Perera
The re-emergence of Donald Trump in the United States is a reminder that change is not permanent. Former President Trump is currently utilising the grievances of the white population in the United States with regard to the economic difficulties that many of them face to make the case that they need to be united to maintain their position in society. He is coming forward as their champion. The saying “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” is often attributed to the founders of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, among many others, though Lord Denning in The Road to Justice (1988) stated that the phrase originated in a statement of Irish orator John Philpot Curran in 1790. The phrase is often used to emphasise the importance of being vigilant in protecting one’s rights and freedoms.
Ethnic and religious identity are two powerful concepts by which people may be mobilised the world over. This is a phenomenon that seemed to have subsided in Western Europe due to centuries of secular practices in which the state was made secular and neutral between ethnicities and religions. For a short while last year during the Aragalaya, it seemed that Sri Lanka was transcending its ethnic and religious cleavages in the face of the unexpected economic calamity that plunged large sections of the population back into poverty. There was unprecedented unity especially at the street level to demonstrate publicly that the government that had brought the country to this sorry pass had to go. The mighty force of people’s power succeeded in driving the leaders of that government out of power. Hopefully, there will be a government in the future that will bring the unity and mutual respect within the people, especially the younger generations, to the fore and the sooner the better as the price is growing higher by the day.
But like the irrepressible Donald Trump the old order is fighting to stage its comeback. The rhetoric of ethnicity and religion being in danger is surfacing once more. President Ranil Wickremesinghe who proclaimed late last year that the 13th Amendment to the constitution would be implemented in full, as it was meant to be, and enable the devolution of power to be enjoyed by the people of the provinces, including those dominated by Tamils and Muslims, has gone silent on this promise. The old order to which he is providing a new economic vision is clearly recalcitrant on ethno-religious matters. As a result, the government’s bold plan to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as promised to the international community in 2015 to address the unresolved human rights issues of the war, is reportedly on the rocks. The main Tamil political parties have made statements that they will not legitimise or accept such a mechanism in the absence of a genuine devolution of power. Politics must not override policies.
HURTFUL SENTIMENTS
The sense of threat to ethnicity and religion looms too large once again for forward movement in conflict resolution between the different communities that constitute the Sri Lankan nation which is diverse and plural. Two unlikely persons now find themselves at the centre of an emotion-heavy ethno-religious storm. One is a comedian, the other is a religious preacher. Both of them have offended the religious sensibilities of many in the ethno-religious Sinhala Buddhist majority community. Both of their statements were originally made to small audiences of their own persuasion, but were then projected through social media to reach much larger audiences. The question is whether they made these statements to rouse religious hatred and violence. There have been numerous statements from all sides of the divide, whether ethnic, religious or political, denouncing them for their utterances.
Both comedian Nathasha Edirisooriya and pastor Jerome Fernando have apologised for offending and hurting the religious sentiments of the Buddhist population. They made an attempt to remedy the situation when they realised the hurt, the anger and the opposition they had generated. This is not the first time that such hurtful and offensive comments have been made by members of one ethno-religious community against members of another ethnic-religious community. Taking advantage of this fact the government is arguing the case for the control of social media and also the mainstream media. It is preparing to bring forward legislation for a Broadcasting Regulatory Commission that would also pave the way to imprison journalists for their reporting, impose fines, and also revoke the licences issued to electronic media institutions if they impact negatively on national security, national economy, and public order or create any conflict among races and religions.
In a free society, opportunities are provided for people to be able to air their thoughts and dissents openly, be it at Hyde Park or through their representatives in Parliament. The threat to freedom of speech and to the media that can arise from this new law can be seen in the way that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which is the world’s standard bearer on civil and political rights has been used and is being abused in Sri Lanka. It was incorporated into Sri Lankan law in a manner that has permitted successive governments to misuse it. It is very likely that the Broadcast Regulatory Commission bill will yield a similar result if passed into law. The arrest and detention of comedian Natasha Edirisooriya under the ICCPR Act has become yet another unfortunate example of the misuse of a law meant to protect human rights by the government. Pastor Jerome Fernando is out of prison as he is currently abroad having left the country a short while before a travel ban was delivered to him.
SELECTIVE TARGETING
The state media reported that a “Police officer said that since there is information that she was a person who was in the Aragalaya protest, they are looking into the matter with special attention.” This gives rise to the inference that the reason for her arrest was politically motivated. Comedian Edirisooriya was accused of having violated the provisions in the ICCPR in Section 3(1) that forbids hate speech. Section 3(1) of the ICCPR Act prohibits advocacy of hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, violence or hostility. The international human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, has pointed out that in the case of Edirisooriya that for speech to be illegal on the grounds of being hate speech it requires “a clear showing of intent to incite others to discriminate, be hostile towards or commit violence against the group in question.” Amnesty International also notes that “When the expression fails to meet the test, even if it is shocking, offensive or disturbing, it should be protected by the state.”
Ironically, in the past there have been many instances of ethnic and religious minorities being targeted in a hateful manner that even led to riots against them, but successive governments have been inactive in protecting them or arresting their persecutors. Such targeting has taken place, often for political purposes in the context of elections, in blatant bids to mobilise sections of the population through appeals to narrow nationalism and fear of the other. The country’s political and governmental leaders need to desist from utilising the ICCPR Act against those who make social and political critiques that are outside the domain of hate speech. The arrest of Bruno Divakara, the owner of SL-Vlogs, under the ICCPR Act is an indication of this larger and more concerning phenomenon which is being brought to the fore by the Broadcasting Regulatory Commission bill.
The crackdown on the space for free expression and critical comment is unacceptable in a democratic polity, especially one as troubled as Sri Lanka, in which the economy has collapsed and caused much suffering to the people and the call to hold elections has been growing. The intervention of the Human Rights Commission which has called on the Inspector General of Police to submit a report on the arrest and its rationale is a hopeful sign that the independence of institutions intended to provide a check and balance will finally prevail. The Sri Lankan state will hopefully evolve to be a neutral arbiter in the disputes between competing ethnic, religious and partisan political visions of what the state should be and what constitutes acceptable behaviour within it. Taking on undemocratic powers in a variety of ways and within a short space of time is unlikely to deliver economic resurgence and a stable and democratic governance the country longs for. Without freedom, justice and fair play within, there can be no hope of economic development that President Wickremesinghe would be wanting to see.
Features
Girl power… to light up our scene

We have never had any outstanding all-girl bands, in the local scene, except, perhaps…yes The Planets, and that was decades ago!
The Planets did make a name for themselves, and they did create quite a lot of excitement, when they went into action.
Of course, abroad, we had several top all-girl bands – outfits like the Spice Girls, Bangles, Destiny’s Child, and The Supremes.
It’s happening even now, in the K-pop scene.
Let’s hope we would have something to shout about…with the band Manthra – an all-girl outfit that came together last year (2022).
Manthra is made up of Hiruni Fernando (leader/bass guitar), Gayathma Liyanage (lead guitar), Amaya Jayarathne (drums), Imeshini Piyumika (keyboards), and Arundathi Hewawitharana (vocals).
Amaya Arundathi and Imeshini are studying at the University of Visual and Performing Arts, while Gayathma is studying Architecture at NIMB, and Hiruni is the Western Music teacher at St. Lawrence’s Convent, and the pianist at Galadari Hotel, having studied piano and classical guitar at West London University.
They have already displayed their talents at various venues, events, weddings, and on TV, as well (Vanithabimana Sirasa TV and Charna TV Art Beat).
Additionally, the band showcased their talent at the talent show held at the Esoft Metro Campus.
The plus factor, where this all-girl outfit is concerned, is that their repertoire is made up rock, pop, and Sinhala songs.
Explaining as to how they came up with the name Manthra, founder member Hiruni said that Manthra means a word, or sound, repeated to aid concentration in meditation, and that the name was suggested by one of the band members.

Hiruni Fernando: Founder and leader of Manthra
She also went on to say that putting together a female band is not an easy task, in the scene here.
“We faced many difficulties in finding members. Some joined and then left, after a short while. Unlike a male band, where there are many male musicians in Sri Lanka, there are only a few female musicians. And then, there are some parents who don’t like their daughters getting involved in music.”
With talented musicians in their line-up, the future certainly looks bright for Manthra who are now keen to project themselves, in an awesome way, in the scene here, and abroad, as well.
“We are keen to do stage shows and we are also planning to create our own songs,” said Hiruni.
Yes, we need an all-girl group to add variety to our scene that is now turning out to be a kind of ‘repeating groove,’ where we see, and hear, almost the same thing…over and over again!
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