01/11/2012
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Groundviews, Lanka Solidarity
***LANKA SOLIDARITY STATEMENT*** We welcome the Report’s contributions to political discourse, but even its most critical conclusions reveal its irredeemable limitations: like the many commissions of inquiry before it, it is neither a truly investigative body, nor empowered to hold political elites to account. Nevertheless, the Report, which contains the testimony of thousands of citizens and surveys the political challenges confronting Sri Lanka, invites further discussion and debate.
04/17/2011
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New Straits Times (Malaysia)
Attempts to map out the future course of Sri Lanka’s Tamil community and elect a leadership from among its diaspora have proved disastrous, writes NEVILLE DE SILVA
06/13/2010
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Sunday Times
So here we are, caught once again in the debilitating cross fire of international calls for a war crimes investigation on the one hand and on the other, (internally) by the misdeeds of a remarkably conscienceless administration. Is this a vicious circle that we can never free ourselves from? This question attracts discussion at several different levels.
04/01/2010
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Himal Southasian
The title of this piece purposely uses the word Lanka and not Sri Lanka. The name and concept of ‘Sri Lanka’ was reified in the country’s republican Constitution of 1972, at a time when the prefix Sri was problematic for the minority communities because it symbolised Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism. Indeed only a decade earlier, there had been a major ‘anti-Sri campaign’ in the North in effacing the number plates of vehicles with the Sinhala character ‘Sri’, particularly since it came soon after the ‘Sinhala Only’ language polices of 1956. During the much-needed shift from the colonial legacy, the colonial name Ceylon was abandoned as was the Soulbury Constitution in 1948 when a republican Constitution was created.
03/28/2010
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Sri Lanka Guardian
(March 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Mahinda Rajapaksa is arguably the most successful leader in post-1948 Sri Lanka, just as Velupillai Pirapaharan was the most successful Tamil leader of modern times, until, intoxicated by hubris, he overreached and brought upon himself and his people a devastating defeat.
03/25/2010
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Groundviews
The main thrust of this article is an attempt to understand the workings of Sinhala nationalism and why it has undermined the Sri Lankan nationhood in order to survive as a nationalist ideology, depriving democratic rights for the ethnic minorities. This in turn has undermined the democratic rights of all communities, including the Sinhala community.
02/03/2010
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Himal Southasian
All in all, the title Pathways of Dissent is both politically hegemonic and academically wanting, as the volume does not in any way touch upon the critical tools afforded by dissent. Another work is clearly needed in order to bring that critical thrust into the analysis of Tamil nationalism.
01/01/2010
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Himal Southasian
Sri-Lanka’s formerly effective school system has been damaged by over-politicisation.
Among the colonies of the British Empire, Ceylon, as it was then known, was far ahead of its neighbours with regard to its primary and secondary school systems. Small both in size and population, there had been no freedom struggle involving the masses. Thus, by 1931, the British government felt confident enough to grant universal adult franchise and a substantial degree of responsibility for governance, under what were known as the Donoughmore Commission Reforms. Indeed, seven of the ten ministers in the executive were Ceylonese, with portfolios including education and health care. By 1945, the administration had adopted additional reforms providing free education from kindergarten to the university level. In his concluding remarks marking that occasion, C W W Kannangara, then the minister of education, said: “It is my belief that this is a pearl of great price. Sell all that you possess and purchase it for the well-being of the nation.” Today, there is a general consensus among professionals and academics that they would not be where they are if not for the lasting reforms set in motion by the leaders of that era.