For decades, the Tamil people have endured war, displacement, political betrayal, economic neglect and repeated cycles of disappointment. Yet despite these hardships, the aspirations of the Tamil people have remained remarkably consistent: dignity, equality, meaningful power sharing, economic opportunity, cultural protection and a secure future for the next generation.

A new and deeply important question is emerging across the North, East and the global Tamil diaspora. Who is truly capable of leading the Tamil people into the future? This question is becoming increasingly urgent as Sri Lanka moves closer towards Provincial Council elections after years of delays and political uncertainty. The frustration among ordinary Tamil people is no longer directed only towards Sinhala dominated central governments in Colombo. Increasingly, many Tamils are also questioning the effectiveness, vision and credibility of their own political leadership.

The concern is simple but painful. After nearly four decades of Provincial Council politics, what have the Tamil people in the North and East genuinely achieved through their provincial leadership structures? The answer is deeply disappointing.

The historical burden of failed expectations

The Tamil political struggle has always been rooted in genuine grievances. Discrimination, language inequality, centralisation of power, militarisation and the erosion of Tamil political autonomy created the foundation for decades of conflict.

The Indo Lanka Accord of 1987 and the 13th Amendment introduced the Provincial Council system as a political compromise aimed at devolving limited powers to the provinces, particularly to address Tamil demands in the North and East.

In 1988, the merged North Eastern Provincial Council became operational under Chief Minister Varatharaja Perumal. At the time, many Tamils believed this would become the beginning of meaningful self-administration.

However, the experiment quickly collapsed. The provincial administration lacked genuine powers. The political environment was militarised. The LTTE rejected the process. Colombo remained distrustful. India’s involvement complicated local legitimacy. Within a short period, the North Eastern Provincial Council disintegrated completely.

The Tamil people were left once again with shattered expectations. Years later, following the end of the civil war in 2009, another opportunity emerged with the Northern Provincial Council elections in 2013. The election of former Supreme Court Judge C.V. Vigneswaran generated enormous public enthusiasm. His legal background, intellectual image and independent reputation gave many Tamils hope that a new style of leadership had finally arrived. But that optimism gradually faded.

While Vigneswaran succeeded in articulating Tamil grievances internationally, many people felt the Northern Provincial Council failed to produce meaningful administrative progress, economic transformation or practical governance outcomes. Internal conflicts, lack of coordination, weak implementation and constant confrontation with the central government weakened the administration. The ordinary people saw speeches, resolutions and symbolic politics, but very little visible transformation in their daily lives.

In the Eastern Province, the situation was even more complex. The East has historically faced ethnic fragmentation, militarisation, competing political interests and security related politics. Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, known as Pillayan, who was Chief Minister of the Eastern Province, was a controversial figure from the beginning. While some viewed him as a pragmatic actor who understood local realities while others saw the administration as heavily tied to militarised political culture rather than democratic governance. With Pillayan facing legal troubles and detention under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Eastern political landscape once again faces uncertainty and mistrust.

A dangerous leadership vacuum

The reality facing the Tamil people is uncomfortable but unavoidable. There is a growing leadership vacuum with many traditional Tamil political parties divided, personality driven and trapped in old political rivalries. Internal power struggles have weakened public trust. Younger generations increasingly feel disconnected from conventional Tamil political culture.

At the same time the Tamil diaspora, despite contributing billions of rupees to rebuilding homes, schools, temples, businesses and social institutions, has also become frustrated with the absence of strategic political direction.

Across the North and East, ordinary people are asking difficult questions. Why are Tamil political parties constantly divided? Why do politicians spend more time attacking each other than solving public problems? Why has unemployment continued to rise? Why are thousands of educated young people leaving the country? Why are there no major industrial zones, technology parks, export industries or globally connected economic hubs in the North and East? Why has political leadership failed to convert international sympathy into sustainable economic progress? Most importantly people are asking whether Tamil politics itself needs a generational transformation.

The Vijay factor and the rise of new political thinking

The political rise of Chandrasekaran Joseph Vijay in Tamil Nadu has created significant discussion among Tamils across the world. Regardless of individual political opinions, one important reality cannot be ignored. Vijay’s emergence represents a larger global trend towards generational change, professionalism, modern communication, youth engagement and pragmatic politics. His movement successfully attracted educated youth, professionals, first time voters, women and people frustrated with traditional political structures. The key lesson is not about cinema popularity alone. The real lesson is that modern voters increasingly want leaders who appear accessible, energetic, educated, development oriented and future focused.

This trend is visible globally. Young generations are no longer satisfied with emotional slogans alone. They want practical governance, employment opportunities, technological advancement, global connectivity, transparency and efficient administration. The Tamil people in Sri Lanka are no different. The next generation of Tamil leadership cannot survive solely on historic emotional narratives without presenting practical solutions for economic development, education, investment, healthcare, digital transformation and employment creation.

The North and East need a leadership revolution

The future Provincial Council elections must not become another competition between weakened traditional personalities. Instead, the elections should become a leadership transformation process. The Tamil people must begin demanding a completely new standard for political candidates. A future chief minister should not simply be a lawyer, activist or public speaker.

The North and East require leadership teams that include economists, engineers, education specialists, business leaders, technology professionals, agricultural experts, tourism developers, environmental planners, investment strategists, healthcare administrators, vocational education experts, women leaders, youth representatives and diaspora professionals. The future of Tamil politics cannot depend entirely on courtroom speeches or emotional nationalism. It must be built on governance capacity.

The importance of three language leadership

One of the biggest weaknesses in Tamil political leadership has been communication limitations. Future leaders of the North and East must be fluent in Tamil, Sinhala and English. This is not optional. A modern chief minister must negotiate with Colombo, engage international diplomats, speak to investors, work with India, communicate with the diaspora and connect with younger generations globally. Language ability is directly connected to political effectiveness. A leader who cannot communicate confidently across all major platforms becomes isolated and ineffective.

Why professional governance matters

The provincial council system has many limitations. However, even within limited powers, much more could have been achieved through efficient governance. Consider the untapped opportunities in the North and East: tourism development, renewable energy projects, fisheries modernisation, agricultural processing industries, aviation connectivity, port based trade, information technology outsourcing, vocational training centres, diaspora investment platforms, smart education systems, regional healthcare hubs and climate resilience projects.

Many of these sectors require professional planning, international networking and administrative efficiency more than emotional political rhetoric. The North and East require leaders capable of creating jobs, attracting investment, improving infrastructure and building economic confidence.

A new model for selecting Tamil political leaders

Perhaps the most important reform must happen before the elections themselves. Tamil political leadership should no longer be decided entirely through closed door party politics. Instead civil society, professionals, academics, religious leaders, diaspora organisations, women’s groups, youth organisations and business chambers should collectively establish an independent public leadership selection mechanism.

Potential candidates should be publicly evaluated based on educational qualifications, professional achievements, integrity and corruption record, public service history, administrative competence, language skills, economic vision, commitment to democratic values, understanding of devolution and constitutional issues and ability to work across ethnic communities. This process would increase transparency and restore public confidence.

The need for Tamil political unity

One of the greatest frustrations among ordinary Tamil people is the endless fragmentation of Tamil politics. Political competition is healthy in democracy but destructive internal warfare weakens the Tamil negotiating position nationally and internationally. The North and East cannot move forward if Tamil parties remain trapped in ego driven rivalries and personal attacks. The Tamil people deserve mature political leadership capable of cooperation, coalition building and long term strategic thinking. Unity does not mean eliminating differences; it means placing the collective interests of the people above individual political ambitions.

The diaspora must also evolve

The Tamil diaspora also has a responsibility. For years, diaspora politics has often focused heavily on emotional symbolism while neglecting structured economic transformation. The next phase of Tamil progress requires diaspora engagement in investment, skills transfer, education partnerships, entrepreneurship development, digital innovation, international lobbying, tourism promotion, aviation and port connectivity, youth empowerment and research and policy development. The diaspora must help build institutions, not just reactions.

A final warning and opportunity

The next provincial council elections may become one of the most important political turning points for Tamils in post war Sri Lanka. If the same leadership culture continues, the North and East risk deeper political irrelevance, economic decline, youth migration and public frustration. But if the Tamil people choose a new generation of educated, multilingual, corruption free, development focused leadership, the provincial council system could still become a platform for meaningful regional transformation.

The future chief minister of the North or East must not simply become another symbolic political figure. The people now need builders. Builders of institutions. Builders of economic opportunity. Builders of political credibility. Builders of modern Tamil leadership. The future of the Tamil people cannot depend only on remembering the past. It must also depend on intelligently preparing for the future. The next generation is watching carefully. And history may not give the Tamil people another opportunity to correct this leadership crisis.

The post Why the North and East Must Rethink Political Leadership Before Provincial Council Elections first appeared on Groundviews.

These disasters are often framed as unavoidable consequences of climate change. Rainfall patterns are becoming more erratic. Flood cycles are intensifying. Landslide prone areas continue to expand. Climate science explains the hazards clearly but hazards alone do not explain why the same communities remain repeatedly exposed. The 2021 X-Press Pearl maritime disaster, contaminated large stretches of the western coastline after a cargo ship carrying hazardous chemicals caught fire and sank off Colombo. Thousands of fishing families lost their livelihoods almost overnight as toxic debris washed ashore and fishing bans were imposed across coastal districts. While the incident was triggered by an industrial accident, its impacts revealed how environmental risk and economic vulnerability overlap most severely for communities already living with insecure livelihoods, limited state protection and high dependence on climate-sensitive ecosystems.

The geography of climate vulnerability in Sri Lanka is not accidental, it is historically produced.

Many of the regions now identified as high risk were shaped through colonial systems of land extraction, labour control and uneven development. From plantation slopes in the central highlands to densely populated floodplains and urban peripheries, patterns of exposure today often mirror the spatial logic established during British colonial rule.

Disasters follow these geographies because vulnerability was built into them from the beginning. This matters as climate conversations still tend to treat exposure as a technical or environmental condition – a matter of rainfall intensity, poor drainage or weak infrastructure. But risk is also political and historical. Who lives on unstable slopes, who settles near flood-prone waterways and who lacks the resources to relocate are questions tied not only to climate but to land ownership, labour systems and inherited inequality.

Sri Lanka’s climate crisis is unfolding on top of landscapes that were never organised around collective safety in the first place.

The colonial logic of land

British colonial rule transformed land into an economic asset first and a social space second. Beginning in the 19th century, large sections of the central highlands were cleared for plantation agriculture. Coffee, and later tea and rubber, became central to the colonial economy. Forests were cut down extensively, hillsides were reshaped for cultivation and transportation networks were built primarily to move commodities from plantations to ports.

Land was reorganised around extraction but plantation economies did not only transform the environment, they also transformed settlement patterns close to estates and production zones. These settlements were designed for labour efficiency and control, not long-term environmental resilience or dignified habitation.

The logic was simple: keep workers close to production and minimise costs.

More than a century later, many estate communities still live within these same geographies. Housing remains concentrated on steep slopes vulnerable to landslides and erosion. Access to secure land ownership remains limited. Infrastructure and public services continue to lag behind national averages. Economic dependence on climate-sensitive plantation labour persists across generations.

Climate change did not create these vulnerabilities; it intensified exposure within landscapes already organised around inequality.

This historical continuity is important because plantation regions are often discussed today only through the language of poverty or underdevelopment, detached from the systems that produced these conditions in the first place. Therefore, current vulnerabilities cannot be separated from the historical structures that shaped where communities could live, work and build stability. The landscape itself carries the legacy of extraction.

Landslides are not simply natural events

Each time heavy rainfall triggers landslides in the hill country, the event is framed as a natural disaster intensified by climate change. Early warnings are issued, emergency evacuations follow and media coverage focuses on immediate destruction. But landslides do not occur in a social vacuum.

The impacts become catastrophic as environmentally fragile terrain intersects with historically concentrated vulnerability.

Deforestation associated with plantation expansion weakened ecological stability across large parts of the highlands over decades. Hillsides were modified extensively for commercial agriculture. Settlement density increased in environmentally sensitive areas. Drainage systems and housing infrastructure often remained inadequate.

Today, climate-induced rainfall extremes interact with these altered landscapes in predictable ways. Yet the communities most exposed to these risks are frequently those with the fewest options to relocate or recover. Estate workers and low income households often remain trapped between environmental danger and economic necessity. Relocation programmes have historically been slow, uneven or disconnected from livelihood realities. Exposure becomes cyclical rather than temporary.

Disasters displace families temporarily but many eventually return to the same high risk areas because alternatives remain inaccessible. Recovery efforts restore immediate stability without fundamentally changing the structural geography of vulnerability.

Floodplains, informal settlements and unequal urbanisation

The same patterns are visible beyond plantation regions.

Colonial land administration concentrated ownership and institutional control while marginalised communities were pushed into peripheral and environmentally insecure spaces. Post-independence urbanisation often deepened these inequalities rather than reversing them. Rapid development, weak housing protections and uneven infrastructure investment contributed to the expansion of informal settlements in flood-prone zones.

Today, climate events repeatedly map onto these same inequalities. When floods occur, it is often the same neighbourhoods that lose electricity first, experience longer displacement, face contaminated water supplies and struggle to recover economically. Informal workers lose income immediately when transport systems collapse or local economies shut down temporarily. Children miss school. Debt increases. Food insecurity rises. Climate exposure becomes cumulative.

During the November 2024 floods triggered by Cyclone Fengal, more than 475,000 people across Sri Lanka were affected as floods, landslides and infrastructure failures disrupted daily life across multiple provinces. The impacts were especially severe in the Northern, Eastern and Central Provinces where entire paddy fields were submerged, irrigation systems overflowed and thousands of farming families lost crops and income during the Maha cultivation season. In districts such as Ampara, Mannar, Trincomalee and Kilinochchi, large portions of cultivated land were damaged, forcing many households already living with economic insecurity into deeper financial precarity. Recovery was uneven. While floodwaters receded within days in some areas, many communities continued facing damaged roads, contaminated water sources, lost harvests and mounting debt long after the disaster disappeared from headlines

The problem with how risk is measured

Sri Lanka has made significant advances in hazard monitoring over the years but vulnerability itself remains poorly tracked in real time. Most climate governance systems are designed to detect visible environmental threats like rising water levels, rainfall intensity, wind speed and soil instability. Far less attention is paid to the quieter social and economic signals that often emerge before a crisis fully materialises.

This creates a major analytical gap.

Communities do not suddenly become vulnerable when floodwaters arrive. Vulnerability accumulates gradually through income instability, rising debt, disrupted mobility, declining work opportunities, food insecurity or weakened social protection. These shifts often appear before a disaster escalates.

A plantation worker losing weeks of wages due to irregular rainfall patterns. A household reducing food consumption after repeated flooding disrupts informal employment. Families pulling children from school temporarily as transportation routes remain inaccessible. Workers migrating under economic pressure after climate-related livelihood disruptions.

These are not secondary effects; they are early indicators of escalating climate stress but they remain fragmented across welfare systems, labour systems and local governance structures rather than integrated into climate risk detection itself. As a result, formal systems continue to respond primarily after visible damage has already occurred.

From hazard exposure to inherited vulnerability

Exposure is mapped geographically while vulnerability is treated as a downstream humanitarian concern. What appears as a natural disaster is often the collision between environmental shocks and historically produced inequality.

This is why the language of high risk geography can sometimes obscure more than it reveals. Risk is not simply located in certain places because of environmental conditions; it is concentrated through decades of unequal land access, labour dependency, underinvestment and exclusion.

The geography of exposure is inseparable from the geography of power. And inherited vulnerability continues to shape who absorbs the greatest costs of climate disruption today.

Acting before harm

Sri Lanka’s climate future will not be determined only by rainfall patterns or rising temperatures. It will also depend on whether systems evolve beyond reactive disaster management toward earlier detection of social vulnerability. Increasingly, the warning signs are already visible before catastrophe occurs.

The challenge is not lack of information. Hazard maps exist. Historical patterns are well documented. Communities themselves often know where risks are intensifying and which households are struggling long before institutions intervene. What remains fragmented is the integration of environmental data with real-time indicators of vulnerability and stress.

Without that integration, risk systems will continue to respond to destruction rather than deterioration. And as climate shocks intensify, the consequences of that delay will become harder to contain because the geography of risk in Sri Lanka was never natural to begin with.

It was inherited.

This is the first of a three part series on Inherited Risk: Colonial Legacies and Climate Vulnerability in Sri Lanka.

The post Inherited Risk: Colonial Legacies and Climate Vulnerability in Sri Lanka – Part 1 first appeared on Groundviews.

Every morning for the past four years, come rain or shine, a group of dedicated activists and relatives of the forcibly disappeared have been making the long walk in Batticaloa town from St Sebastian Church to Gandhi Park, a route that has become a daily form of resistance. In a world of fleeting digital trends and mass mobilisations, the Justice Walk offers a different way of thinking about change: one that is slow, mindful and ingrained in the unwavering commitment of everyday practice.

The roots of this movement trace back to Sri Lanka’s emergency periods. When gathering in groups was prohibited and protests required elusive state permissions, a unique form of dissent emerged: the single file march. By walking alone but together – separated by just enough distance to avoid the legal definition of an unlawful assembly – activists found a way to say what needed to be said without uttering a word.

This history of foot pilgrimages evolved in the early 2000s, often led by the mothers of the disappeared. These women would walk from temple to temple or church to church, turning their personal grief into a public call for accountability. The current iteration of the Justice Walk found its immediate spark during the aragalaya in 2022.

When the central protest sites in Colombo were dismantled and curfews were imposed on May 12 four years ago, a small group met in a private home. They were nervous but they decided to reclaim the public space. They began with a plan for five days, which then extended to 10. “It kind of just happened that we wanted to continue,” walker Amara says. From its initial conception, the Justice Walk has spanned nearly 1,500 days of continuous presence.

At the heart of Gandhi Park stands a tree that the walkers have named the Justice Tree. In the absence of a permanent physical office, at different points in time this tree has been their meeting place, their archive and their mailing address. They have even used Justice Tree, Gandhi Park as a formal address to send recommendations to the president regarding new terror laws.

Today the tree remains adorned with artwork, poetry and placards; it functions as a living library of history. Every month the banners change to reflect the names of those who disappeared in that specific month in Batticaloa’s history. One of the walkers, Sharadha Devi, describes the tree as a silent witness: “This tree does not know how to talk. If it could, it would tell many stories… it is the one that bears our pain and suffering.” For the participants of the Justice Walk, system change is not merely about replacing a political leader or a specific government. In the East, where Tamil communities have long faced unique struggles regarding land, disappearances and wartime violence, the call for justice is much older than the recent economic crisis.

While the fuel and food shortages of 2022 initially brought thousands into the streets, the walkers realised that true transformation required something deeper than mass mobilisation; it required an internal transformation. “Change has to come from us,” Sarala Emmanuel explains. “We need to talk about history. We need to question things in our everyday practice, whether it’s about the environment, the economy or what we see as entitlements.”

This philosophy explains why they continue to walk long after the height of the aragalaya. When passersby ask, “Why are you still walking? Didn’t you get what you wanted?” the walkers respond with their own questions: “Can you afford food? Have things changed in our neighborhoods?” The walk is a space kept open specifically to ask these questions when the rest of the world has moved on.

The Justice Walk is a space to remember all victims of violence, refusing to take sides in a way that prioritises one grief over another. It commemorates massacres where the military was responsible but it also honours Buddhist monks and the hundreds of police officers killed in 1990. The walkers’ solidarity extends beyond the borders of Sri Lanka. On the seventh of every month, they walk for Palestine and the victims of conflicts in Sudan and other global crises. On the 25th, they carry placards for women living with disabilities who may not be physically able to participate in the walk themselves. In doing so, they connect the local soil of Batticaloa to a global history of resistance, drawing inspiration from the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, who have walked for the disappeared for over three decades.

The Justice Walk encourages a focus on mindfulness. It is not a performance for an audience; it is a discipline. The walkers describe the difficulties of being present – fighting the distractions of the mind and the urge to worry about the next task. Their pace is different now than it was four years ago; it is slower, more deliberate.

As they enter their fifth year, the group admits it does not have a grand plan. “How long are we going to do this? We don’t know,” says one. “But we will walk. That is the only thing we know.”

The Justice Walk reminds us that history is something that we can reflect on every day to have a greater understanding of the present. By walking this route day after day, the walkers ensure that the names of the disappeared are not forgotten, that the struggles of municipal workers are heard and that the future is filled with a persistent, quiet demand for a more just world.

To find out more about the Justice Walk in Batticaloa you can visit its Facebook Page.

The post Four Years of the Batticaloa Justice Walk first appeared on Groundviews.

It was not just flattery but a genuine confession by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when addressing a gathering after the reception accorded to him by the US president in February 2025 that Donald Trump was the “greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House”. But having witnessed the eroding support for Israel and President Trump’s presidency in the country Laura Loomer, a pro-Israeli activist, said – and Trump seems to have agreed with her – that he could be the last pro-Israeli president in US history.

Meanwhile, Trump’s two ceasefires, one to stop the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza and the other between Hezbollah and Israel in Southern Lebanon, are in fact Trump’s unwritten licences granted to Prime Minister Netanyahu and his IDF for continuing with their genocide mission in Gaza and annexation of the West Bank while invading Southern Lebanon. The US-Israel war with Iran and its consequent threat to peace in the Middle East and to global economic security has provided a convenient cover under which Israel is systematically extending its territorial limits.

Israel is the only country created by the UN with undefined territorial boundaries. That deliberate omission was one of the reasons why Israel’s Zionist forefathers like Arthur Balfour, Theodor Herzl and Ben Gurion canvassed among their followers to accept the UN-British division of the Mandated Territories as a tentative solution. As Ben Gurion wrote to his son, Zionists wanted the “camel to set its foot inside the tent first” before chasing out the occupants and taking over the tent completely. The 1948 war was the first episode of Arab expulsion from their villages and businesses and the 1967 war provided another opportunity to occupy territories belonged to the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank that were later ratified by the Oslo Accords completed in 1999. The war in Gaza since October 7, 2003 is the continuation of what began in 1948.

The material destruction of Gaza has left that strip of land totally desolate and according to UN it would cost more than $70 billion to clear the rubble alone before planning for any reconstruction. To Israel’s military leaders and Zionists, Palestinians are not humans and they described the genocide and destruction as an exercise in “mowing the lawn”.  President Trump declared a ceasefire in Gaza on September 29 last year but all it achieved was for Hamas to exchange all its Israeli captives (dead and alive) for a limited number of Palestinian prisoners suffering in Israeli prisons. Hamas was denied of any choice to select those prisoners. But while there was strict order for Hamas to stop violence against Israel, there was no such compulsion on the latter.

Since that ceasefire was signed on October 10, 2025 Israel has continued its bombing campaign and been reported to have killed around 700 Gazans while wounding another 2,000. Under the cover of the ceasefire Israeli settlements in the West Bank have increased and the settlers have forcibly displaced around 36,000 Palestinians from their properties. Although these are illegal measures they had the approval from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government. Does President Trump’s ceasefire make any sense?

Just as violent resistance from Hamas and its demand for liberation from Israeli oppression initiated the invasion of Gaza, so was Hezbollah’s armed support for Hamas provoked Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon. The military doctrine of Dahiah was invoked by Israel implying the unleashing of disproportionate force to target civilian infrastructure to cause maximum psychological impact on civilian population and create eternal darkness, meaning utter destruction as in Gaza. More than a million people have been forcibly evacuated, over 1,700 have been killed so far, dead bodies have been vaporised and most of Southern Lebanon has been laid waste. Once again President Trump declared a ceasefire with no compulsion on Israel to stop its mayhem.

The third ceasefire is in the context of the US-Israel war against Iran. To begin with, this is a war that President Trump and his cabinet cabal declared unilaterally without any constitutional backing. There was no provocation or threat from Iran and the declaration was made solely at the request of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel’s powerful Zionist lobby in Washington. That was made clear when Joe Kent, the Director of the National Centre of Counter Terrorism, resigned shortly after the war began.  But soon President Trump realised that Iran was not a sitting duck and as Iran retaliated by regionalising the war by attacking US bases in Gulf states and closing the Strait of Hormuz, the financial and economic cost of the war started biting the US economy first before spreading to other countries. Iran, which depends heavily on the export of oil, naturally suffered due to the US blockade. However as the economic pain started emptying wallets of US consumers, President Trump’s domestic vote bank began to dry up and that was the main reason why he is desperately seeking a way out of the mess he had created. A ceasefire with some face saving advantage over the enemy is desperately needed by President Trump and his Republican cabal to face the midterm election. This is why Iran’s nuclear programme has become a key issue in negotiation.

More than the US, a nuclear free Iran is a must for Israel because it does not want any state in the Middle East to challenge the arsenal of Israel with its 800 nuclear warheads. The former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ElBaradei, recently stated in an interview that Iran does not have any nuclear weapons and its uranium enrichment programme is nowhere near weapon production. It was Prime Minister Netanyahu’s scare mongering at the UN that eventually led to the current war.

Currently there are nine countries – the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – that have nuclear weapons and five of them – US, Russia, China, France and the UK – are permanent members of UN Security Council with veto powers.  Pakistan developed its nuclear programme to counter India and to maintain a balance of power against India’s Greater India ideology. Why then should not Iran or Türkiye work towards achieving that balance of power against Israel in the Middle East? As the 4th century AD Roman military writer Vegetius said, “If you want peace prepare for war”.

The ultimate losers in this war will not be Iran but the Gulf countries that accommodated the US bases and had already faced the wrath of Iran. The resumption of war would initiate the second phase of Iran’s destructive response by attacking these bases and other US assets. UAE has unashamedly become the black sheep among them, openly aligning with Israel and urging Trump to bomb and destroy Iran. It is time Saudi Arabia and other members of the Arab League look for an alternative path for their security and development. With China rising as world’s leading economy driven by clean energy a Look East policy is increasingly becoming an attractive and sensible alternative to the oily economies in the Gulf. Will they wake up?

Ultimately, it is President Trump’s choice between continuing with the economic pain which his calamitous war has imposed worldwide or saying no to Israel that would decide the fate of his current ceasefires in the Middle East.

The post President Donald Trump’s Ceasefires Encourage Israel’s Savagery and Territorial Acquisition first appeared on Groundviews.

Sri Lanka is undergoing one of the most significant demographic transitions in its modern history. According to the 2024 Census conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics, women now make up the majority of the national population while the country is simultaneously facing declining birth rates, an ageing society and increasing economic pressure. These changes are not isolated developments. Together, they point toward what can be described as the feminisation of the population. The 2024 census recorded the population at approximately 21.76 million people. Of this, females account for around 51.7 percent of the population while males account for 48.3 percent. The national sex ratio stands at approximately 93 males for every 100 females. This imbalance has steadily widened over time due to higher female life expectancy, male migration for employment and differences in mortality rates.

At first glance, these numbers may appear to be only demographic statistics. However, they reveal a much deeper transformation that will affect the country’s economy, labour market, politics, healthcare system and social structure for decades to come. One of the most alarming trends highlighted by the census is the rapid ageing of the population. In 2012, citizens aged 65 and above accounted for approximately 7.9 percent of the population. By 2024, this figure had increased to 12.6 percent. Meanwhile, the share of children under the age of 15 declined from 25.2 percent in 2012 to 20.7 percent in 2024.The ageing index, which measures the number of elderly people for every 100 children, has increased dramatically to around 87 elderly persons per 100 children. This indicates that Sri Lanka is moving toward an age structure similar to countries such as Japan and South Korea where ageing populations have become major economic and social concerns.

The median age of the population has also increased to around 35 years, reflecting a society that is steadily growing older. At the same time, the Total Fertility Rate has reportedly fallen to around 1.3 births per woman, far below the replacement level of 2.1 needed to maintain population stability. This decline in births has several long-term implications. Fewer children today mean a smaller workforce in the future. Economists warn that shrinking working age populations can slow economic growth, reduce productivity and increase the dependency burden on younger generations. In practical terms, fewer workers will eventually be supporting a larger elderly population through taxation and public spending. These demographic changes are also deeply gendered. Women generally live longer than men, meaning that a large proportion of the ageing population will consist of elderly women. Many may live alone, lack financial independence or depend heavily on family support and state welfare systems. Elderly care is still largely handled within households rather than through formal institutions. Traditionally, women have carried the responsibility of caring for elderly parents, children and relatives.

However, social structures are changing rapidly. Family sizes are shrinking, urbanisation is increasing and migration continues to separate family members across regions and countries. As a result, the traditional caregiving system may no longer be sustainable. This raises urgent questions about social security. Pension and welfare systems were not designed for such a rapidly ageing population. Healthcare expenditure is expected to rise significantly as elderly populations require greater treatment for chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and hypertension. Demand for nursing care, retirement support and elderly housing facilities is also likely to increase. Yet the country’s economic crisis has already weakened public finances.

Without stronger social protection policies, many elderly citizens may face poverty and social isolation. This issue particularly affects women because they are more likely to outlive spouses and may have spent years outside formal employment due to unpaid caregiving responsibilities.

The feminisation of the population therefore also means the feminisation of ageing. At the same time, Sri Lanka faces another contradiction. Although women form the majority of the population and achieve high levels of educational attainment, female labour force participation remains comparatively low. According to recent labour statistics, only around 47 percent of working age people are economically active and female participation remains significantly below that of men. Many educated women remain outside the formal workforce because of childcare burdens, social expectations, workplace discrimination, transport insecurity and lack of flexible employment opportunities. This represents a major economic challenge.

The country is currently experiencing labour shortages in several sectors while also suffering from outward migration of skilled workers. Thousands of professionals, including doctors, engineers and IT specialists, have left the country in recent years seeking better economic opportunities abroad. At the same time, a large proportion of educated women remain economically under utilised within the country itself.

If Sri Lanka is to sustain economic growth amid population decline, increasing female participation in the workforce will become essential rather than optional. Studies across the world show that higher female employment contributes directly to GDP growth, household income stability and national productivity.  Policies such as affordable childcare centres, flexible work arrangements, paid parental leave and safer public transport could significantly increase women’s economic participation. Expanding digital employment and support for female entrepreneurship may also help women enter sectors traditionally dominated by men.

The demographic shift also has important political implications. Although women make up the majority of the population, female political representation remains low by international standards. Women account for less than 10 percent of parliamentary representation despite decades of discussion about gender equality in governance. There has been some improvement at local government level following the introduction of a 25 percent quota for women in local authorities. This reform significantly increased female participation in municipal and provincial political institutions. However, representation at the national level remains limited.

This imbalance is increasingly difficult to justify in a country where women form the demographic majority. Greater female representation in politics could influence policy priorities in areas such as healthcare, childcare, education, domestic violence prevention, elderly care and labour protections. International research has frequently shown that women leaders often place stronger emphasis on social welfare and community-based development. As the population becomes increasingly female, political institutions may eventually face greater pressure to reflect this demographic reality. Another major concern linked to demographic change is migration.

Sri Lanka has experienced large scale emigration over the past several decades, particularly among young workers and professionals. Economic instability following the 2022 crisis accelerated this trend. Many young people now seek employment opportunities overseas due to rising living costs, limited wages and uncertainty about the future. This migration contributes further to population decline and workforce shortages. The departure of younger workers means fewer taxpayers supporting pension systems and fewer skilled workers contributing to economic development. Rural areas may face especially severe consequences as younger generations relocate to urban centres or leave the country entirely. Schools in some regions may eventually close due to declining student populations while healthcare systems struggle to support growing elderly communities. Despite these challenges, demographic transition does not necessarily mean national decline. Countries that successfully adapt to ageing populations often focus on improving productivity, investing in technology, strengthening social protection systems and increasing women’s economic participation. Sri Lanka still possesses strong human capital, high literacy rates and a well-educated female population that could become one of the country’s greatest economic strengths.

The feminisation of the population should therefore not be viewed simply as a demographic curiosity or social problem; it is a transformation that will redefine the nation’s future. The country now faces a critical choice. It can continue relying on outdated economic and social structures that limit women’s participation and fail to prepare for ageing or it can recognise demographic reality and adapt through inclusive policies, stronger social security systems and greater female representation in leadership and decision making. The 2024 Census is more than a collection of numbers; it is a warning about the future direction of society.

The Sri Lanka of the coming decades will likely be older, smaller and increasingly female. Whether this becomes a crisis or an opportunity will depend on how effectively the country responds today.

The post The Feminisation of Sri Lanka’s Population first appeared on Groundviews.

One of the most damaging features of the collapse of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was the speed at which its own ranks fragmented under pressure. As corruption scandals mounted and electoral defeats accumulated former allies, MPs and party functionaries abandoned the sinking ship, many defecting to the BJP. In the last week of April 2026, seven AAP MPs including prominent figures quit to join the BJP. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal reportedly tried personally to prevent the defections. He could not.

The lesson here for the NPP is sobering. The NPP is a coalition, not a homogeneous party. It contains the JVP’s disciplined cadre structure and also civil society professionals, trade unionists, women’s activists and community leaders who joined because they believed in the NPP’s manifesto rather than the JVP’s ideology. Many of these non-JVP members are already feeling marginalised. The NPP’s manifesto reflected the priorities of its newer, more liberal elements but in practice the JVP dominates decision making at every level.

If the NPP fails to honour its commitments to these coalition partners, if the JVP’s statist, nationalist tendencies continue to override the manifesto’s promises of devolution, constitutional reform and ethnic reconciliation, the coalition will fracture. The desertion dynamic that destroyed the AAP does not require defections to the opposition; it only requires the withdrawal of enthusiastic support, the demoralisation of activists and the gradual erosion of the broad popular mandate that made the NPP’s 2024 victory possible.

The opposition’s own glass house

A crucial contextual point must not be overlooked. The forces mounting accusations of corruption against both the AAP and the NPP are not themselves paragons of virtue. The BJP, for all its anti-corruption rhetoric, has its own long catalogue of politicians facing serious charges. In Sri Lanka, the opposition parties campaigning against the NPP – the remnants of the SLPP, the SJB and various nationalist formations – include figures directly implicated in the economic mismanagement and corruption that brought the country to its knees in 2022.

The Rajapaksa family, whose misrule was found by the Supreme Court to have demonstrably contributed to the economic crisis and to have violated public trust, remains a political force. Former president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, arrested briefly in August 2025 on charges related to private use of state resources, attracted the defence of parties across the political spectrum. It was a spectacle that illustrated, as the NPP correctly pointed out, the depth of the corrupt political class that it is attempting to displace.

This context is important but insufficient. In the AAP’s case, pointing to BJP corruption did not save the party from electoral defeat. Voters do not always, or even often, make decisions on the basis of comparative moral accounting between competing parties. They vote on the basis of what they feel, what they experience and what they expect. A government that campaigns on cleaning up corruption but appears to selectively apply that standard or that governs incompetently or that responds to legitimate criticism with arrogance and legal threats will lose the trust of voters regardless of how much more corrupt its opponents may be.

Structural differences and Sri Lanka-specific vulnerabilities

Sri Lanka’s political context differs from India’s in ways that are both advantageous and challenging for the NPP. The NPP governs nationally, not as a regional government within a hostile central government. It commands a two-thirds parliamentary majority, rare in Sri Lankan political history. The opposition is fragmented and weak. These structural advantages give the NPP room to act boldly.

However, Sri Lanka also presents unique vulnerabilities that have no Indian counterpart. The ethnic and religious fault lines that have defined Sri Lankan politics for decades and that produced a devastating civil war remain insufficiently addressed. The NPP’s failure to set a clear timetable for Provincial Council elections, its silence on the specifics of constitutional devolution and the continued harassment of Tamil activists by counter-terrorism police have deepened disenchantment in the north and east. Tamil parties won most of the councils they contested in the May 2025 local elections, suggesting that the NPP’s claim to a pan-ethnic mandate is more fragile than its 2024 parliamentary numbers implied.

The NPP also faces a more precarious economic situation than the AAP ever did. Sri Lanka remains saddled with one of the highest debt burdens of any middle income country with 49 per cent of revenues projected to go toward debt service in 2026. The government’s adherence to IMF conditionalities, while fiscally responsible, has left it with limited capacity to deliver the economic relief it promised voters. The triple shocks of Cyclone Ditwah, Middle East conflict-driven fuel shortages and the lingering effects of the 2022 crisis have placed further strain on living standards. Sri Lanka cannot afford to make the same mistakes twice. The window for genuine reform is narrow and it will not remain open indefinitely.

Recent political history demonstrates that several important political figures have damaged their own credibility through their own actions whether through inexperience, lack of situational awareness or through being manipulated by political opponents. These self-inflicted wounds have provided easy ammunition to critics who would otherwise have to construct their attacks on thinner grounds.

Lessons the NPP must learn before it is too late

The collapse of the AAP from 67 seats to 22 in a single decade is not inevitable for the NPP. However, it is possible. The following lessons emerge from a comparative analysis of the two cases and deserve urgent attention from the NPP’s leadership.

1. Accountability must be universal, not selective. The single most damaging thing the NPP can do is to apply anti-corruption standards selectively, prosecuting opposition figures while protecting its own. The decision to defend Energy Minister must be reversed or convincingly explained. CIABOC and other oversight bodies must be fully resourced and made more efficient. Independent commissions such as the RTI must be funded and empowered, not undermined.
2. Tone matters as much as substance. The NPP must move away from moralism and defensiveness. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s early speeches acknowledged that no single party could solve Sri Lanka’s problems alone and called for constructive criticism and public scrutiny. That spirit must be recovered. Initiating police investigations into critical journalists or opposition commentators rather than using established media complaints procedures is precisely the kind of tactic that cost the AAP its middle class base.
3. The coalition must be genuinely inclusive. The NPP’s strength lies in its breadth. If the JVP’s organisational dominance continues to sideline the professionals, civil society leaders and community activists who joined the NPP in good faith, the coalition will fracture. The NPP’s manifesto belongs to all its members, not only to the JVP.
4. Governance capacity must be built urgently. The Cyclone Ditwah response failure was a warning. The NPP must overcome its mistrust of outside expertise and engage academics, civil society organisations and international technical advisers in developing and implementing its reform agenda. Decisions cannot continue to be made by a small circle of ministers.
5. Ethnic reconciliation cannot wait. Provincial Council elections must be held without further delay. The harassment of Tamil activists by counter-terrorism police must end. A credible timetable for constitutional reform including meaningful devolution must be presented. The NPP’s long term legitimacy depends on whether it can be a genuinely national government, not merely a Sinhala-majority one with aspirations of national reach.
6. Economic relief cannot be deferred indefinitely. The IMF programme is fiscally necessary but politically dangerous if it is perceived as prioritising creditor interests over the needs of the Sri Lankan poor. The NPP must push harder for wealth taxes, for equitable distribution of the tax burden and for renegotiated debt terms that create fiscal space for social investment. The poorest Sri Lankans, nearly a quarter of the population, are living in poverty. Their patience is not an unlimited one.
7. Prepare for intensifying opposition campaigns. The BJP’s anti-AAP campaign in India was relentless, sophisticated and effective. Sri Lanka’s opposition, despite its weakness, will similarly seek to amplify every NPP misstep, frame every procurement decision as corruption and use any available institutional leverage to damage the government’s credibility. The best defence against this is not counter-propaganda but genuine, demonstrable good governance.

The window is still open but it is closing

The AAP’s story is not a story of inevitable failure. It is a story of what happens when a movement built on anti-corruption promises fails to protect its own integrity, governs inexpertly and loses the trust of the voters who gave it an historic mandate. The BJP’s campaign against it was ruthless and often cynical but it succeeded because the AAP handed its enemies the weapons they needed.

The NPP government still has time to avoid the same fate. It governs with a majority that the AAP never had. Its opposition is weaker than the BJP was in relation to Delhi. The international community, including Sri Lanka’s bilateral partners, has a genuine stake in Sri Lanka’s success and is prepared to offer support. The window for systemic reform, although narrowing, has not yet fully closed.

Nevertheless, the lessons of the AAP experience must be absorbed honestly and urgently. Anti-corruption mandates are not self-sustaining. They must be renewed, again and again, through consistent and universal application of the law. Governance is not won by rhetoric but by results in people’s daily lives, in the functioning of public institutions, in the fairness of the tax system and in the safety of communities. Popular mandates, however overwhelming they appear at election time, are ultimately conditional.

The broom sweeping away the corrupt old order must also be used to sweep clean the state itself – its institutions, its government. A house in constant use demands regular cleaning. A government is no different. Clear systems and methodologies must be developed and rigorously upheld. Corruption can never be defeated once and for all; it must be perpetually managed and led from the top. It cannot rest on a leader’s friendships, loyalties or personal whims. Fail here and history will have only a familiar story to tell.

The post Lessons Sri Lanka Can Learn from India’s AAP – Part 2 first appeared on Groundviews.

The May Day rally organised by the NPP has once again demonstrated its ability to mobilise large segments of the public. However, beyond the optics of crowd size and political enthusiasm lies a deeper and more critical question. Has the NPP transitioned from a protest-driven movement into a credible governing alternative or is it gradually losing clarity on its foundational promises?

This question is not merely academic; it reflects the growing expectations of a public that is no longer satisfied with slogans alone but is demanding substance, direction and policy certainty. The political rise of the NPP cannot be understood without reference to the aragalaya protests of 2022. That period represented a rare moment in Sri Lanka’s history where public frustration transcended ethnic, class and political divisions.

Last year’s May Day rally was an extension of that energy. It carried the emotional momentum of a nation in revolt. The NPP effectively positioned itself as the political voice of that uprising.

This year, however, marks a transition. The rally was still large and impressive but its tone was different. It was more structured, more controlled and more aligned with conventional political messaging. This reflects a movement attempting to evolve from protest to governance.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake remains one of the most prominent and trusted political figures. His appeal lies in his perceived integrity, his consistent critique of corruption and his ability to communicate with clarity. However, political popularity is now being tested by policy expectations. Voters are beginning to shift from emotional support to analytical scrutiny. Questions are being asked about economic strategy, investment policy, governance mechanisms and international relations. These are not questions that can be answered through rhetoric alone.

One of the most concerning developments in recent months is the apparent de-emphasis of key policy commitments that were once central to the NPP’s platform. These include the reform or repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the drafting of a new constitution and the holding of Provincial Council elections. Each of these issues carries profound implications for democracy, governance and minority rights.

The PTA has long been criticised as a draconian piece of legislation. The NPP had previously taken a strong stance against it, promising reform. However, there is currently no clear roadmap or timeline for such reform. The issue has largely disappeared from the forefront of political discourse. This raises legitimate concerns about whether this represents a strategic delay or a shift in policy priorities.

The NPP has consistently advocated for systemic change, including constitutional reform. However, beyond broad statements, there is little detail regarding what this new constitutional framework would entail. Key questions remain unanswered regarding devolution, power sharing and minority protections.

The continued delay of Provincial Council elections represents a significant democratic deficit. The NPP’s position on this issue has been unclear, with little emphasis placed on it in recent public engagements. The current approach of the NPP can be interpreted as a strategic recalibration. Electoral considerations, political sensitivities and the transition from activism to governance all play a role.

However, such a strategy carries risks.

Political ambiguity may provide short term advantages but it undermines long term credibility. Minority communities, in particular, view these issues as fundamental rather than optional. Failure to address them clearly risks eroding trust and weakening the party’s reformist image.

The NPP stands at a critical juncture. It has the support, the momentum and the opportunity to reshape the political landscape. However, to do so, it must move beyond broad narratives and present clear, actionable policies.

Sri Lanka’s electorate is evolving. It is no longer driven solely by emotion but by expectation. The NPP must recognise this shift and respond accordingly. If it succeeds, it has the potential to become a transformative political force. If it fails, it risks becoming another example of unrealised promise. The choice and the moment are both historic.

The post NPP’s May Day Momentum and Unfulfilled Promises first appeared on Groundviews.

The arrest of 22 Buddhist monks with narcotics in their possession at the Katunayake Airport recently hit the headlines. Many referred to them as cheevara dharin, meaning people impersonating Buddhist monks or lay people in Buddhist robes. But they have not been charged with impersonating Buddhist monks; they were found to be monks from several temples in the country. The repeated use of what may be called an euphemism, cheevara dharin, wouldn’t change facts nor would it help receive the attention it deserved as a serious social problem. Calling them impersonators of Buddhist monks may temporarily soothe the collective religious psyche of Buddhist priests and laypersons but it would not fool discerning persons.

To understand the hypocrisy in this we can think of those aristocratic families who disown their children who marry someone below their status. Often such parents say, “He/she is no longer a member of our family”. However, people know that it is just an angry response. They will still identify such children with their families.

This incident, however embarrassing it may be to many priests and Buddhists, is not an isolated incident. There are Buddhist priests who have misbehaved in public at times even worse than thugs. On such instances, some call them cheevara dhariya but they remain as monks and reside in their temples as usual. It is obvious that this euphemistic naming is a convenient language game that hides the important questions surrounding such incidents.

One of the unavoidable questions linked with such incidents is whether the way we relate to Buddhism is correct or fruitful. Has the present form Buddhism, which is the result of centuries of social change, contributed enough to make us better human beings? No religion can remain untouched by social change and all religions including Buddhism have undergone much adjustment, as they are essentially people related. Religions don’t exist in a social vacuum. They are inert if they are confined to holy texts; they come to life only when people act according to their edicts in forms of worship, rituals, visits to holy places and spiritual experiences.

According to Prof. Ninian Smart, there are seven dimensions of religion – experiential dimension, mythic dimension, doctrinal dimension, ethical dimension, ritual dimension, social dimension and material dimension. They suggest the facets of religion that have contributed to our religious experience. None of these dimensions can mean anything without human intervention and they are continually being influenced by social dynamics such as economics, politics, education, culture, science, technology, superstitions, violence, war and conflict. We cannot consider religion as an isolated entity. It is an inseparable string of this tapestry where each string influences all the others and is influenced by them.

Hence the religious experience of Buddhists today is manifestly different from that of our ancestors who lived in different periods in the past in different economic, cultural and political contexts. As historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari says, over the centuries science has taken over much of the ground occupied by religion. For example, in ancient times, our ancestors went to their shamans at the first sign of sickness or misfortune in any form – lightning, thunder, drought or famine. Today we rarely go to priests or places of worship when we have a health issue; our first impulse is to see a doctor. When there is lightning and thunder we stay indoors and switch off vulnerable electrical devices instead of praying to gods or deities to stop them. When there is a power failure, we call the relevant electricity supplier. If we still seek the intervention of religious formalities when death occurs, it is because we still believe in the version of afterlife delineated by our religion.

This unending interaction among all our entrenched and overlapping social institutions – political, economic and cultural – has not spared our religions and they have ceaselessly been modified by the torrents of societal changes. Therefore, it is not derogatory of any religion to say that the current forms of religions are distanced from their original forms. No religion is practiced in its primeval form in which existed in the past. Now the question is to what extent our religions in their present day forms has contributed enough to make us sensitive to current social issues, whether they have made us more broadminded, progressive, affable or less coarse.

There is no doubt that of the facets of religion, our religiosity is most manifest in our persistence in performing rituals, worship, belief in narratives, festivals and celebrations that have become routine without them contributing to deepen our human relationship. Year after year, we celebrate our religious events and make our weekly visits to places of worship which, after a transient high, leave us with the same biases, obsessions and tedium. What receive our least attention are the doctrinal dimension and ethical dimension. Generally, we have no time for studying the doctrine, the books of which category is crowded out by self-help categories that include guidebooks on career development, becoming fabulously rich, being top class executives, honing leadership and diplomatic skills and generally climbing up the social ladder. When it comes to ethical dimension, we use ethics to suit our plans either to show how cruel others can be and wink at morals when they impede our success. Usually, ethics and doctrine begin to figure dominantly when we have already put behind us the worldly successes and get ready to look for greener pasture on the other side of death. As far as we are energetic and ambitious, our role models are those topnotch bureaucrats and other elites in society but never our religious leaders – they resurface only when getting ahead and success are no longer attractive or attainable.

Far from blaming religions for not coming to grips with our social ills, we may think of how their present forms and how we relate to them have failed to make us sufficiently progressive. There is no point in placing religion above all human achievements and lifting it to the stratosphere of ethics if we let it remain there propping it up with all types of outward manifestations of religiosity. If we keep hiding behind facades of decorum and familiar language games without honestly taking stock of our fragile relations with our religions, we can continue to deceive ourselves that our religions need no sober evaluation.

The post Religion and its Relevance to Society first appeared on Groundviews.

Suriya was born into one of Sri Lanka’s most remarkable progressive households. Her father, Dr. S.A. Wickremasinghe, my political visionary at the time, was the founder and a pivotal leader of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka that was established in 1943. Her mother, Doreen Young Wickremasinghe, was a British-born socialist who came to Sri Lanka in the 1930s. Later, she became a Member of Parliament of the Communist Party of Ceylon and was the first president of the Suriya Mal Movement, which sold the golden suriya flower to raise funds for local causes rather than for British war veterans. That campaign gave Suriya her name, one that came to stand for resistance and compassion. Doreen was conferred the title of Deshamanya, Sri Lanka’s second highest civil honour, in 1998. Suriya carried this legacy forward with tenacity, translating her parents’ idealism into decades of practical human rights work.

As the secretary of the CRM, Suriya shaped the organisation into one of Sri Lanka’s most principled civil society voices. Through insurgency, civil war, emergency rule and political upheaval, she stood as what one legal scholar described as “a fearless fighter against the excesses of emergency rule.” Under her leadership, the CRM was among the first to argue that human rights protection and monitoring must be a foundational, non-negotiable component of any peace settlement. “It has always been the firm conviction of the CRM that the proper securing of human rights throughout Sri Lanka, both in law and as a practical reality, must be an integral part of any political settlement of the conflict.” She documented state violence, published detailed reports on the human rights situation during periods of conflict. She was recognised internationally as one of the 100 Unseen Powerful Women by One World Action for her impact on global rights culture.

From 1982 to 1985, Suriya served as chairperson of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International, placing her at the centre of the worldwide campaign for prisoners of conscience. Her work with Amnesty was deeply connected to the aftermath of the April 1971 uprising. Then thousands of youngsters were murdered under the emergency law and tens of thousands of young Sri Lankans were imprisoned under the emergency law and the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) Act. In the early 1970s, Suriya appeared before the Criminal Justice Commission alongside Mr. S. Nadesan representing Mr. Susil Siriwardena and Mr. Viraj Fernando, a brave act at a time when association with the accused was itself politically fraught.

In 1975, together with Ms. Yvonne Terlingen of Amnesty International, Suriya visited Rohana Wijeweera at the New Magazine Prison in Colombo. Rohana requested Yvonne to carry their appeal to Amnesty International to intensify the campaign for political prisoners, a campaign the CRM was already waging. Wijeweera later recalled that they listened with genuine care and attentiveness. As a person that was incarcerated at the time, I later wrote: “We were convinced that Amnesty International and the Civil Rights Movement were genuine in their campaign for the release of political prisoners, and we were grateful to them.”

Suriya’s sustained campaign against the death penalty was among the most powerful expressions of her moral conviction. Writing in Pravada, she argued that resuming judicial hangings would be “a retrograde step in the progress of our country.” She dismantled the case for capital punishment with clarity and rigour: its failure as a deterrent, confirmed by international research commissioned by the UN, its irreversibility in the face of inevitable miscarriages of justice, its disproportionate cruelty to the poor and disadvantaged who lacked access to competent legal representation and its fundamental incompatibility with modern, rehabilitative approaches to justice. She was particularly alert to the danger of executing innocent people, noting that police investigations were far from infallible and that the poor were “the most likely victims of miscarriages of justice.” Quoting the Constitutional Court of South Africa, she wrote with conviction that “the state does not have to engage in the cold and calculated killing of murderers in order to express its moral outrage at their conduct.” The CRM under her leadership urged that executions not to be resumed under any circumstances, calling instead for real, systematic solutions to violent crime.

When the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake threatened the foundations of Sri Lanka’s democracy, Suriya’s voice was among those raised in principled protest. Writing with former UN Under-Secretary-General Jayantha Dhanapala on behalf of the Friday Forum, she condemned the flouting of democratic norms, the disregard for the Supreme Court’s constitutional powers and the use of state power to stifle dissent while finding hope in the judiciary’s resolve, which she called “a glimmer of hope to the people of Sri Lanka.” Her work across the Social Scientists’ Association, the Friday Forum, the CRM and Amnesty International revealed a consistent thread – that democracy is only as strong as the institutions and individuals willing to defend it.

I first came to know Suriya in the early 1970s, during some of the most turbulent years in our country’s modern history. I remember the first time I saw her at the Criminal Justice Commission, appearing on behalf of Mr. Susil Siriwardena. I also remember her visit to meet Wijeweera at New Magazine Prison in 1975. At a time when not many looked upon those imprisoned with empathy and when the state’s narrative about the April 1971 uprising had hardened into the dominant political account, Suriya and the CRM had been campaigning against the Criminal Justice Commission Act from the day it was established. She saw those prisoners not as the state saw them but as human beings deserving of rights, dignity and a fair hearing. Over more than 50 years, I never once saw her waver in her commitment or allow political expediency to dilute the moral clarity of her convictions.

Suriya leaves behind a legacy that cannot be measured simply in positions held or cases argued. She leaves behind a way of being in the world, one in which principle is never sacrificed for comfort, in which the rights of the most marginalised are the truest test of a society’s values and in which the long arc of justice requires patient, unglamorous, daily effort. Her name, given in honour of the golden suriya flower and the anti-imperialist movement her mother helped lead, could not have been more fitting. Like that flower, she offered sustenance in difficult conditions and bloomed most brightly in the places most in need of light.

Rest in peace, Suriya. Your work was your testament. Sri Lanka owes you a debt it may never fully repay.

The post Suriya Wickremasinghe: A Life in Service of Justice, Rights and Human Dignity first appeared on Groundviews.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has now completed 18 months of his term. He has another 42 months ahead. He stands as both the centre of gravity  and the symbol of the NPP government.

When he visits Jaffna he is often photographed walking alone on an empty road early in the morning wearing a short and a T‑shirt, stopping to chat casually with local residents. On another day he is seen travelling in ordinary clothes, smiling and conversing with tea pluckers, who are  dressed fashionably for the occasion. We saw the President celebrating the new year with a rural family affected by Cyclone Dithwa. He held a daughter’s hand and spoke warmly with the family.

This kind of symbolic political imagery is not new to this country.

Maithripala Sirisena once sat on a wall gazing at the sky. On another occasion he was drinking tea in a modest roadside café or chatting in a Tamil household in Jaffna. Ranil Wickremesinghe posed for photographs while engaging posh female teenagers in political discussion and circulated images of himself walking with his political partner in matching outfits. Mahinda Rajapaksa kissed the ground upon arrival at the airport and carried babies at public rallies.

What all four of them share is the performance of a carefully constructed political theatre. All of them are common in venerating leading monks in front of the camara although their politics are in contrary to Buddhist principals.

President Dissanayake needs to understand that real politics lies elsewhere and not in photographs. The people did not endorse him because he bowed to monks or wore a double‑pocket shirt.

The 2022 aragalaya was the turning point where President Dissanayake and the NPP were able to grabbed the opportunity to emerge as symbols of the people’s struggle and aspirations. The NPP rose to power, riding the wave of a call for a new political culture unleashed by the aragalaya.

A comparable event occurred in 1986 in the Philippines when a mass uprising toppled the Marcos dictatorship and brought Corazon Aquino to power. That revolt was broadcast live across this  country, just as the 2022 struggle was live on screen.

Aquino’s government restored civil liberties and moved the country towards democracy. Yet her presidency lasted only one term. During her tenure there were at least seven failed military coup attempts, with the attempts of 1987 and 1989 being particularly violent. These severely weakened her government.

Then came the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, followed by major earthquakes that devastated the economy and hampered relief efforts. Daily power cuts lasting eight to twelve hours crippled industry and public morale. Land disputes surrounding her family’s Hacienda Luisita estate, unfulfilled promises of agrarian reform and corruption involving officials in her administration eroded her people power image.

Replace Aquino with President Dissanayake. Replace military coup attempts with the joint opposition, the GMOA, the Electrical Engineers’ Associations and similar forces. Replace Mount Pinatubo with Cyclone Dithwa. Replace the Middle East war‑triggered fuel crisis with our electricity crisis.

While corruption under the NPP is not as entrenched as during the Rajapaksa era, alleged corruption and unheard level of inefficiencies under the government are contributing to growing public disillusionment.

Education reforms were abandoned and no action was taken against a former speaker who submitted forged educational certificates. A JVP leader reportedly possessing personal wealth of Rs. 270 million serves as a minister, owns shares in Dhammika Perera linked companies and holds cryptocurrencies that are illegal in Sri Lanka. The housing controversy involving Minister Lal Kantha, who lectures civil servants on Marxism while conducting Lenin reading rallies, is another scandal. Minister Kumara Jayakody faces corruption charges in court.

It came to light that $2.5 million was lost to hackers due to negligent cross border payment practices. At the very least, the Finance Secretary should accept responsibility and resign. Another $625,000 that was transferred to US Post is missing. Sri Lanka has become fertile ground for cybercrime due to weak digital security.

The president’s media advisor, Chandana Suriyabandara, allegedly assaulted two journalists during the peace march of foreign monks. The ban on Theepachelvan Piratheepan’s books is shameful.

The government’s democratic reform record is poor. State media continues to function as a political tool. The Online Safety Act, previously condemned by the NPP, remains in force. The legislation replacing the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Protection of State from Terrorist Activities (PTSA), has drawn sharp domestic and international criticism. There is no timeline for the promised independent prosecutor’s office. Provincial Council elections, delayed for over a decade, remain unscheduled. Letters showing provincial identity have been removed from vehicle licence plates in an act of anti‑devolution posturing.  One after the other  pledges of democratic governance lies unfulfilled.

These weaknesses could still be addressed. There remains over three and a half years. Yet the NPP seems to lack both the mechanism and political will to carry out damage control and course correction.

If the JVP’s tradition of criticism and self‑criticism still operates within its political bureau, one wonders how much internal turbulence it would cause.

The government’s opaque handling of the coal procurement scandal of millions of rupees and not disclosing the missing $2.5 million for four months marks a decisive shift. It signals the erosion of the NPP’s commitment to a new political culture and beginning of the losing the moral high ground.

Renovating bus terminals, railway stations or building expressways does not constitute political change. The Rajapaksa era saw unprecedented highway development yet it failed because corruption was systemic and political arrogance rampant.

Chile’s 2022 political change was widely discussed in Sri Lanka – the election of 35 year‑old leftist Gabriel Boric. While Boric enacted meaningful pro‑people reforms, he failed to deliver constitutional change. Crime rose, racial tensions increased and in 2026 the presidency was won by far right Trump‑style candidate José Antonio Kast.

Boric’s ascent resembles Anura Kumara’s in important ways. His base was largely the student‑youth movement and the urban progressive middle class, social forces that are inherently volatile.

In contrast, Brazil’s Lula da Silva rests on a solid working class base, strong support among the poor and organised social movements. Colombia’s Gustavo Petro draws strength from trade unions, students and indigenous and Afro‑Colombian communities. Left leaning,  both leaders practise coalition politics.

The Rajapaksas relied on Sinhala‑Buddhist extremism. The UNP once had a broad urban and rural base until it was hollowed out under Ranil Wickremesinghe. The SLFP succeeded by integrating Sinhalese- based  Pancha Maha Balawegaya with left‑centre social forces.

We know that the NPP functions largely as a front for the JVP. The critical question remains: if the JVP’s traditional base was only three to ten per cent, what is the real social foundation of this government?

At present the survival of the NPP depends not because of its own performance but on the weakness of an incoherent opposition. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán once appeared invincible yet was undone by a political movement that began only two years earlier.

That is why it is unwise to dismiss the opposition as defeated and irrelevant, dear Red comrades.

The post Lessons for the NPP from Around the World first appeared on Groundviews.