A conversation across generations to reveal Sri Lanka’s hidden history
3 weeks, 1 day ago

A conversation across generations to reveal Sri Lanka’s hidden history

The Hindu  

“Educating the younger generation about Sri Lanka’s untold post-colonial history is the purpose of my play since contemporary history is not taught in Sri Lankan schools,” says Ruwanthie de Chickera, director of Sri Lankan play Dear Children Sincerely – 7 decades of Sri Lanka. The Dear Children Sincerely by Stages Theatre Group is an attempt to chronicle the post-colonial history, independence, revolts, racial powers, the 30-year civil war that followed and the post-war Sri Lanka. Posing questions “We sought out the voices of those who lived through it — people born in the 1930s and 40s who were young when Sri Lanka gained independence. “Politics rarely comes up in Sri Lankan families,” Ms. Chickera says.

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History of this topic

Interview | Sri Lankan democracy has been altered by citizens themselves: Jayadeva Uyangoda
4 months ago

Interview | Sri Lankan democracy has been altered by citizens themselves: Jayadeva Uyangoda

The Hindu  

Published : Nov 22, 2024 18:57 IST - 21 MINS READ Jayadeva Uyangoda, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Colombo, spoke to Amit Baruah about the groundbreaking November 14 election results and their implications for Sri Lanka’s future. Since independence—actually since 1931 when we got the universal adult franchise—political power through elections has always been the monopolistic …

Interview| I Think More People in the North and the South Will Vote for the NPP: Ahilan Kadirgamar
4 months, 1 week ago

Interview| I Think More People in the North and the South Will Vote for the NPP: Ahilan Kadirgamar

The Hindu  

Published : Nov 13, 2024 20:29 IST - 21 MINS READ Ahilan Kadirgamar, who teaches sociology at the University of Jaffna and has been a long-time human rights activist, has a keen eye on developments in Sri Lanka. Just as there have been major changes in politics in Sri Lanka’s south—who would have imagined that a coalition led by the …

A new chapter in India-Sri Lanka relations
5 months, 3 weeks ago

A new chapter in India-Sri Lanka relations

Hindustan Times  

The Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s victory and ascension to the presidency marks a significant shift in Sri Lanka’s political landscape, with effects on its relations with India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended his congratulations to President Dissanayake on his electoral victory, highlighting Sri Lanka's vital role in India's Neighbourhood First policy and the Security and Growth for All in the Region …

Story of Sri Lanka, in verse | Review of poetry anthology ‘Out of Sri Lanka’
1 year ago

Story of Sri Lanka, in verse | Review of poetry anthology ‘Out of Sri Lanka’

The Hindu  

In their introduction to this anthology, the editors Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne and Shash Trevett say, “the time is right — the moment is now — for the world to know Sri Lanka better”, and that just about captures the gap this book fills. The act of containing within a single volume, then, all three, also becomes part of the …

Giselle Harding: “GLF doesn’t take itself too seriously and that’s why it’s fun”
1 year, 1 month ago

Giselle Harding: “GLF doesn’t take itself too seriously and that’s why it’s fun”

Hindustan Times  

Please tell us about your role as the festival director and your journey in promoting literature in the region? Owning a bookshop in Sri Lanka, being an avid supporter of the Sri Lankan reading culture and with a background in events, Galle Literary Festival felt like a very natural endeavour — yet I was incredibly flattered to be approached by …

A cautionary tale from Indian Tamils in Ceylon
1 year, 4 months ago

A cautionary tale from Indian Tamils in Ceylon

Hindustan Times  

More people have heard of the fast-bowling Sri Lankan wizard of a spinner Muttiah Muralitharan than of the great community of “Indian Tamils” in Sri Lanka or the tea plantation workers on the Emerald Isle’s Hill Country, to which he belongs. That makes Muttiah Muralitharan one of the 4.2% of Sri Lanka’s “Indian Tamils”. Between 1978 and 1982, I had …

An under-discussed facet of colonial history
1 year, 4 months ago

An under-discussed facet of colonial history

The Hindu  

November 09, 2023 12:16 am | Updated 01:55 am IST This year marks the bicentenary of the arrival of Tamil indentured labourers in Sri Lanka, a milestone recently commemorated in Colombo at an event called “Naam 200”, where I delivered an address on this woefully under-discussed facet of our colonial history. It was not without reason that the British historian …

In Ceylon, there was no tryst with democracy: Rajan Hoole
2 years, 1 month ago

In Ceylon, there was no tryst with democracy: Rajan Hoole

The Hindu  

Sri Lanka’s crisis last year was unprecedented on many accounts. But, it was not entirely unrelated to the country’s tumultuous past, marked by discriminatory laws and policy targeting the island nation’s minorities, especially the Malaiyaha Tamils, according to Rajan Hoole, Jaffna-based mathematician, best known for his human rights activism during the civil war years. Published by the Colombo-based Sailfish, it …

Little to celebrate in Sri Lanka at 75
2 years, 1 month ago

Little to celebrate in Sri Lanka at 75

The Hindu  

Controversy looms over Sri Lanka’s celebration of the 75th anniversary of its Independence, with a question having been raised on whether it is worth wasting Sri Lankan rupees 300 million on this event. The Left critique shared the Sinhala nationalist argument that political independence secured by the local elites was incomplete, arguing that only a socialist republic would ensure full …

In Sri Lanka, no quiet after the storm
2 years, 8 months ago

In Sri Lanka, no quiet after the storm

The Hindu  

Even after the fall of his official residence and the Presidential Secretariat into the hands of protesting citizens, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa tried to defy the massive public pressure on him to resign. Abolishing Sri Lanka’s much-hated executive presidential system of government through a comprehensive package of political reforms will have to be a priority in the policy agenda …

Sri Lanka’s ‘picturesque’ protests
2 years, 9 months ago

Sri Lanka’s ‘picturesque’ protests

Al Jazeera  

Every time there is a crisis in the Global South, Western news organisations parachute their correspondents and photographers in to document the developments. This has largely been the case with the international coverage of Sri Lanka’s ongoing protests demanding that the ruling Rajapaksa family leave office. This is nothing unique to Sri Lanka – we often see similar narratives of …

Lessons from Sri Lanka’s crisis - The Hindu
2 years, 10 months ago

Lessons from Sri Lanka’s crisis - The Hindu

The Hindu  

As Sri Lanka’s crisis continues to spiral out of control, the country gets a new Prime Minister: what are the lessons from India’s neighbourhood? As the violence spiralled out of control and PM Mahinda and his family were flown to a naval base for safety, the Indian high commission in Colombo issued two statements distancing itself from the Rajapaksas: one …

A chance to hit refresh in Sri Lanka
2 years, 11 months ago

A chance to hit refresh in Sri Lanka

The Hindu  

Having swept to power in a landslide victory in late 2019, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa wasted no time declaring unequivocally that his would be a Sinhalese ethno-nationalist state. But I did not receive the response I anticipated.” Eroding support Less than three years later, Mr. Rajapaksa is as unpopular a head of state as has ever held office in …

Economic crisis threatens hold of Sri Lanka’s most powerful family
2 years, 11 months ago

Economic crisis threatens hold of Sri Lanka’s most powerful family

Live Mint  

Sri Lanka’s politics have been dominated for much of the past two decades by a single family. Mr. Rajapaksa, who was once widely revered among Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority as a war hero, is now battling to stay in power. “People respected him as a god, as a saint, in those days," said Ubayamath Rajasekaram, a 49-year-old homeopath who …

Book review: Featherlike touch silhouettes agony of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees
8 years, 9 months ago

Book review: Featherlike touch silhouettes agony of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees

Deccan Chronicle  

Chennai: It is seven years now since the horrific events at Mullivaikal in Northern Sri Lanka climaxed the civil war in the Indian ocean Island and one of India’s closest neighbour. However, post-Mullivaikal, with the nominal return of peace and hope for a durable solution to the far too long-drawn ethnic crisis facing the Sri Lankan Tamils, amid the new …

Sri Lanka: The more things change...
9 years, 11 months ago

Sri Lanka: The more things change...

The Hindu  

THERE may be a nostalgic colouring to this, but well into the 1980s it seemed that there was a vibrant public intellectualism in force in Sri Lanka that engaged with the ethnic question in a reasoned, bold and fair-minded manner. Through the protracted phase of the internecine struggle before this ruthless endgame, and even in the period after the LTTE …

In Sri Lanka, a new divide brings back old fears
11 years, 10 months ago

In Sri Lanka, a new divide brings back old fears

The Hindu  

More than a month after Fashion Bug, a popular clothes store in the Sri Lankan capital, was vandalised, business is back to normal. Among Sri Lanka’s Muslims — who make up less than 10 per cent of the island’s population — the attack on the store and the anti-halal campaign have sparked fresh anxiety and insecurity, a year after monks …

Spin on a yarn
14 years, 1 month ago

Spin on a yarn

Hindustan Times  

Shehan Karunatilaka's Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew was self-published in Sri Lanka and is now all ready to uproot stumps in India. RS: Did you set out to write a book about cricket, or a book about Sri Lankan society with cricket as a metaphor for life? My intention was to use cricket as a device to write about …

N. Ram interviews Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa
14 years, 4 months ago

N. Ram interviews Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa

The Hindu  

During his first term, Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa, underestimated by his political opponents and the outside world, achieved overwhelming political dominance after his politico-military strategy eliminated the LTTE as a military force and he went on to score two big electoral victories. This was very prominent in high society, especially in Colombo; they thought the people who didn’t know …

The birth of a tragedy
27 years ago

The birth of a tragedy

The Hindu  

Since Sri Lanka's Independence 50 years ago, two competing visions of a modern state, grounded in separate and unmediated ethnic interests, have informed the nation's peculiar path of decolonisation. Thus, within two years of Independence, Sri Lanka's quest for nation-building led itself to two tracks - a Sinhala track and a Tamil track - which were never to meet throughout …

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