Midweek Review

Vaccines. Vaccines?

Published

5 years ago

2021/09/8

by Dr F E Dias

“To vaccinate or not to vaccinate, that is the question”, soliloquised Piglet, “since all vaccines are equal, but some vaccines are more equal than others” – poetic licence applied with apologies to William Shakespeare and George Orwell.

Introduction

Smallpox is a virulent infectious vesicular disease. Vesicular and pox in that it causes eruptions on the skin which develop into pustules or pox, and eventually leaves one covered with pitted pockmarks; and designated “small” since the 16th century, to distinguish it from the “great pox” syphilis. It is caused by the virus variola major, variola being a term introduced in circa 570 AD by Marius of Aventicum, now Avenches, then the capital of Roman Switzerland, and meaning pustule. It was a dreaded pestilence in Europe particularly during the 17th and 18th centuries and killed nearly a third of its victims, most of whom were children. The pathogen was spread mostly during the early rash stage from sores in the tongue and mouth through droplets emitted into the air.

When Francis Xavier arrived in Mannar in 1548, smallpox was raging in Ceylon, and in 1697 the royal city of Kandy was deserted on account of it – with the sufferers, believed to be possessed by demons, abandoned to die on roads and in the jungle by their kith and kin. Joseph Vaz and his nephew Joseph Carvalho tended the sick and buried the dead and astonished the King Vimaladharmasurya II on his return once the epidemic had ceased by declining reward. This disease was introduced into the Americas by Europeans and decimated populations of native Red Indians of the northern plains, the Aztecs of Mexico, and the Incas and Araucanians in the south. It was declared eradicated in 1979, and today exists as a bioterrorist threat, precedent reportedly been set by the British Army in 18th century America by their donation of intentionally infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the enemy camp.

It was a phenomenon of great interest that survivors of smallpox, albeit disfigured and sometimes blinded, become immune to a second infection. Apropos in Asia it had been known since the 10th century that introducing into healthy persons the ground scabs or the pus from sores of those infected could also induce immunity. The latter means was popularised in England by the survivor, her “beauty fled” as expressed in her own poetry, Lady Mary Montagu, the wife of the British ambassador to the Court of the Ottoman Empire, who learned of it during her stint in Constantinople in the early 1700s. Through Lady Montagu’s advocacy and consequent acceptance by several royal houses in western Europe, it became standard practice in that part of the continent during the eighteenth century. This inoculation of variola or variolation usually produced localised and less severe symptoms than naturally acquired infection, did have a fatality rate of circa 2% which was an order of magnitude less than that during an epidemic, and carried the additional risk of triggering one.

Chickenpox is caused by the varicella-zoster virus which is a herpesvirus, and the measles virus is a paramyxovirus. Horsepox and cowpox viruses however, together with inter alia those that cause camelpox, rabbitpox and monkeypox have been classified together with the smallpox virus into the family of poxviruses, and specifically into the genus Orthopox. The disease horsepox – variola equine, and the causative virus is now supposed to be extinct, unless it still exists in unknown wild rodents who constitute its reservoir in nature. There were observations in the military that cavalrymen fared better than infantrymen during the smallpox outbreaks; and that farmers working with cattle tended also to be spared. It was remarkable also that milkmaids – whose hands had been infected with the zoonotic cowpox virus from pustules in the udder and teats of cows and had themselves contracted the relatively milder cowpox disease and subsequently recovered, showed resilience against smallpox. Legend has it of a Bristol milkmaid, Gloucestershire and the western counties being a region where cowpox was prevalent, who boasted that she will never have “an ugly pockmarked face” due to smallpox – variola, because she had already had cowpox – variola vaccinae, the pox of the cow.

Vaccination

Through the acts and observations of Benjamin Jesty, John Fewster and others in the late 1700s and the published clinical observations and methodical investigations of Edward Jenner the effectiveness of building immunity to smallpox safely through the inoculation with the genetically and immunologically similar but pathologically milder virus that causes cowpox was established. The story of the hand of Sarah Nelms the milkmaid, the udder of Blossom the cow and the arm of James Phipps the gardener’s son is a story for another day, and yet the achievement was a marvelous demonstration of ingenuity and enlightened emipiricism – a century before modern concepts of virology were established and the role of microbes in the causation of disease was understood. The term vaccinae, is derived from the Latin vacca meaning cow which is perhaps related to the Sanskrit vassa, and its adjective vaccinus, led to the coining of the word “vaccination”, and likewise “equination” when the horsepox pus was used similarly. However, Louis Pasteur in 1881 proposed to generalise the term vaccination to include all protective immunisation procedures against any infectious disease in honour of Jenner, using this term to describe his own work on anthrax, cholera and rabies.

Vaccination until recently was commonly understood to be a prophylactic treatment effected via inoculation of an antigen – a portmanteau of antibody generator, to elicit an immunological response that could protect against future infections by a pathogenic organism associated with that antigen. The antigenic suspension would contain dead or inactivated, or if alive attenuated pathogen, its fragments or subunits, or purified surface proteins or toxoids – inactivated endotoxins of the pathogen that retain immunogenicity. Vaccination can be justified considering the risks of exposure to the pathogen, contagiousness, vulnerability of subject, consequences of the disease, availability of treatment and the efficacy, including tolerability, of the vaccine. Against these factors and the pertaining facts, vaccination against smallpox was justified.

Genenic Medicine

The spike protein is a key factor in infection and a major surface antigen in coronaviruses, although not the only one. Using the identified DNA sequence of the Wuhan virus SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have in vitro transcribed synthetic spike protein mRNA. Subsequently nucleoside-modified, this now modRNA is encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles to create their investigational products BNT162b2 and mRNA1273 respectively. The modRNA of both organisations are similar but their proprietary lipid nanoparticles which enable merging with human phospholipid cell membranes via endocytosis differ. Once intramuscularly injected, the modRNA enters our cells’ cytosol and our ribosomes translate them into viral spike proteins. The Sputnik, Oxford-AstraZeneca, and J&J products incorporate spike protein DNA into an adenovirus vector that enables antigen expression in the host cells. Through these means, we are programmed to generate trillions of viral antigens without becoming infected with the virus itself – consequent to which immunological response may occur. Such intentional gene transfer as novel means of attempting to effect humoral and cell-mediated immunity is associated with gene therapy, genetic medicine being a nascent science in itself, and is distinct from conventional antigen inoculation – although in retrospect, attenuated virus vaccines with RNA genome viruses do in part operate similarly.

Some Implications

These products received emergency use authorisation in some countries, in that such authorisation becomes null if the situation ceases to be decreed a public health emergency – since the products are unapproved, and by implication their use constituting human trials. Animal trials enable potential immunopathological phenomena to be discovered especially intrinsic antibody dependent enhancement and vaccine hypersensitivity when the vaccinated subject is subsequently exposed to a wild virus – which sometimes result in fatal outcomes, these deaths often incorrectly being reported as due to new and more deadly variants. Such pathogenic priming was a cause for failure of vaccines developed for the first SARS-CoV virus, and for half a century of active research providing no safe dengue virus vaccine to date. Infants may also have ADE caused by maternally acquired SARS-CoV-2 antibodies bound to mast cells.

The spike protein on which the viral infection is reliant for binding on to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 in host cells such as those of the pulmonary vascular endothelium, and triggering the clinical symptoms and lung damage, by itself could behave as a pathogen and have effects on the respiratory system more severe than the virus in toto due to stronger binding of the protein alone as compared to it when associated with a whole virus and present on its surface. Further it is not clear how long the RNA in its modified and stabilised form and its proprietary synthetic lipid nanoparticles designed for prolonged antigen expression or the stabilised spike protein variant produced may prevail in vivo.

The blood brain barrier was originally observed in 1885 by Paul Ehrlich, better renowned for discovering the cure for syphilis in 1909. It is a biological phenomenon constituted of blood capillaries with tightly packed endothelial cells that separate the brain tissue from the blood circulatory system and forms a defence against pathogens and toxins that may be present in blood and maintains a controlled environment within the central nervous system. Its structure was understood only after scanning electron microscopy became available and even glucose cannot pass through it except via special ports known as transporter proteins. It has been shown in male mice that the spike protein does pass the blood-brain barrier that holds whole viruses back, when introduced intravenously and intranasally, potentially causing inflammation in the brain, thrombosis and delayed neurodegeneration.

Syncytin-1 is a protein essential in our trophoblast development and for placentation when in the earliest days of our life our syncytiotrophoblast implants us into the maternal uterine decidual epithelium and also produces human chorionic gonadotrophin which among a multitude of wonderful functions suppresses maternal immune response against the foreign organism growing within her – her child. Similarity has been reported between several sequence motifs of the genetic code for the Wuhan virus spike protein and syncytin-1 both of which are fusion proteins. It needs to be ruled out that immune response to the spike protein does not trigger immune reaction against syncytin-1 since if it did that would imply abortifacient immune reaction and infertility over as long as the immunity persisted.

Conclusions

There are situations in which artificial induction of immunisation of the healthy against infectious disease, even amid an epidemic, is just. The means by which immunological response is achieved requires due diligence to ensure that the consequences due to the means is not more tragic than that of the disease. Further, due attention needs to be rendered towards achieving cure via treatment – even if the effective anti-viral drugs are cheap, known, ubiquitous and their patents have long expired.

All News Advertisement

Midweek Review

A ‘partnership’ like no other!

Published

16 hours ago

2026/09/16

Sahan Weerasooriya

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at the Indian Army memorial

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

By Shamindra Ferdinando

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A significant visit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two Battaramulla memorials

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The way forward

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

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

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

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

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

Midweek Review

Feeling political sadness as signs of hope and resistance

Published

16 hours ago

2026/09/16

Sahan Weerasooriya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then,
hell of despair

would seem
like
heaven of hope”

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

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