Sri Lanka: from debt default to transformative growth

https://odi.org/en/publications/sri-lanka-from-debt-default-to-transformative-growth-second-edition

An expanded essay series charting Sri Lanka’s path beyond stabilisation towards lasting economic prosperity.

In 2022, Sri Lanka faced its worst economic crisis since independence, culminating in a sovereign debt default.

Building upon the insights of the acclaimed first edition, this second edition revisits Sri Lanka’s remarkable economic journey, now extending to early 2025. Following the unprecedented sovereign debt default of 2022, Sri Lanka’s stabilisation has surpassed expectations, yet the challenge remains: to transcend mere recovery and forge a path towards sustained, transformative growth. Edited by Ganeshan Wignaraja and Dirk Willem te Velde, this expanded collection offers critical analysis and actionable policy recommendations.

Featuring insights from 24 prominent Sri Lankan and international experts, this edition includes an updated introduction and a new, pivotal essay advocating for a robust growth plan to prevent future crises. The 15 essays collectively offer 27 refined and expanded policy proposals designed to propel Sri Lanka towards long-term economic resilience and prosperity.

Download the full collection of essays below to delve deeper into these critical topics and discover actionable strategies to help Sri Lanka achieve its economic potential.

 

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Photo story – Malayaga Makkal Walk “Tracing our roots to win our rights”

https://express.adobe.com/page/FjB2hx6PCTXoc/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vikalpa.org%2Farticle%2F42592%3Ffbclid%3DIwY2xjawI5MMdleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHS2rgo8nwcT-1k41OaFp-RT7-gvqVBnDH_aOR6RDbI4zX4GQyw13-_ppIA_aem_xabt_AfK-Xva3-H4PH5rWg&embed_type=overlay&context=lightbox-expand

2023 – “Walk” from Mannar to Matale to commemorate the 200-year arrival of the Plantation community to Sri Lanka along that road. On the way, there were gatherings at Thalaimannar, Thalaimannar to Pesalai, Pesalai to Mannar Town, Mannar Town to Murunkan, Murunkan to Madhu, Madhu, Madhu Junction to Cheddikulum, Cheddikulum to Medawachchiya, Medawachchiya, Medawachchiya to Mihintale, Mihintale to Tirappane, Tirappane to Kekirawa, Kekirawa to Dambulla, Dambulla, Dambulla to Nalanda, Nalanda to Matale.

Credits:

Sampath Samarakoon/ vikalpa.org

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Words to Kill a Man, and Free a Man

https://polity.lk/words-to-kill-a-man-and-free-a-man-kanya-d-almeida

 

Words to Kill a Man, and Free a Man

Kanya D’Almeida

 

In the early months of 2012, I inherited two troves of literature. I had been hunting for one of them for years; the other arrived unsolicited.

The first was an archive of the journalistic work of my uncle, Richard de Zoysa, during his career—cut short by his murder in 1990—as a reporter for the Rome-based Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency. 

The second was the unbound, unedited manuscript of an American political prisoner, a former Black Panther named Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz who had been incarcerated in the state of Pennsylvania for nearly four decades.

I was a news reporter myself at the time, employed by the same agency that Richard had been working for when he was killed. I had recently been transplanted from New York City to a desk at IPS’ Washington office, where my bureau chief, an exceptionally sharp, veteran journalist—whose small room on the 14th floor of the National Press Club in DC was primarily occupied by heavy metal filing cabinets jammed with news cuttings and clippings from decades past— kindly allowed me to conscript him into my search for Richard’s dossier.

All my life, Richard had twirled above me like a mobile over a baby’s crib: shifting, wonderful, shadow-casting, and always out of reach. He and my mother, first cousins, had been raised as siblings in the same home. She had witnessed, perhaps more intimately than anyone else, his evolution from a precocious child (whose mind may have bordered on genius) to a kind of cultural titan in Colombo, his presence dominating the stage, his voice crackling through radio broadcasts, his face on television screens reading the evening news—and finally, his byline on the international wire, in dispatches from Sri Lanka.

I had read his poetry and paged through dozens of photo albums documenting his acting career (which began with a very professional adaptation and home production of Hamlet’s soliloquy To Be or Not to Be when he was nine years old) and I had heard stories about stories about stories—but never actually read his journalistic work.

All these articles, I would ask my parents, his colleagues, the Internet—that he was threatened for, followed for, murdered for—where are they?

            Gone? Lost? Scrubbed out?

It was with my excellent bureau chief, both of us huddled over his archaic desktop computer one afternoon, that we managed to extract, from the depths of JSTOR, one of Richard’s pieces entitled ‘Pride Stalks Beneath a Full Moon’. The dateline read “COLOMBO, May 22, 1989”. It was locked behind security passwords and paywalls. While my boss made stern phone calls to the relevant, automated authorities of that impenetrable digital library, I hurled abuse at the screen that kept telling me I lacked the required credentials to access my uncle’s writings.

What we ultimately ended up with—a small cache of articles constructed in the signature IPS style of an inverted pyramid with a buried lede and delivered in Richard’s sparse yet polished prose—felt to me like finding the missing shard in a fragmented family heirloom.

*

A few weeks later (or was it a few weeks earlier?), I received a FedEx envelope containing a 200-page document titled, The Making of a Political Prisoner by Russell Maroon Shoatz. An accompanying note from a recent acquaintance said only that he wished me to review the draft of this autobiography with a view to using it as the basis for a screenplay. The man whose life story was contained in that bulky envelope, my friend explained, was nothing short of jaw-dropping—he’d escaped prison twice in the 1970s, spent over 22 years in solitary confinement, and was a prolific revolutionary theoretician and scholar, revered by The Movement and despised by the authorities who had sworn to preside over his slow death in the Hole. The Hole. Shorthand among prisoners and guards for solitary confinement.

The name ‘Maroon’ was an honorific, a respectful reference to the many thousands of slaves who, on almost every continent, escaped the plantations, formed liberated communities, and lived as free people. His supporters and some of his family believed that a powerful biopic would help to ignite an international campaign for his freedom bid. After all, everyone loves a good story. It would require a significant commitment on my part: to interview Maroon himself, which was complicated by his status as a maximum-security prisoner; and to meet and speak with his tribe—children, comrades, counsel, co-defendants.

I was fresh and green—25 years old, with a ready pen, steeped in American cultural mythology (particularly such vague notions as freedom of speech, or the power of the people, organised and united)—and hungry for meaningful work as a writer.

I was also afraid. The twin revelations of Richard’s past and Maroon’s imagined future—with myself strung between—felt somehow double-edged: the sweet promise that words might be powerful enough to free a man were dogged by the horror that words were dangerous enough to kill a man. 

Both men were stunning writers, in very different ways. Maroon’s chapters read like spoken word, a beautiful language of the streets fine-tuned in the depths of isolation. He grew up in a gang in West Philadelphia, became a community organiser, joined the Panther Party, and stood trial for murder before spending most of his adult life in prison. But his story had no ending, whereas Richard’s seemed to begin at the end—with his own death—and then plough its way painfully backward in time through a dismal chapter of Sri Lanka’s history.

*

All of Richard’s articles I unearthed were published roughly in the first half of 1989 and ceased abruptly on 10 August with the publication of a piece entitled, ‘SRI LANKA: Nearing a Human Rights Apocalypse’. Still, after thirteen years and dozens of reads, the prophetic flavour of that pithy 899-word bulletin sends chills down my spine. The opening paragraphs need little explanation:

Residents of the seaside suburb of Mount Lavinia, three miles from the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo, were awakened at around 3:00 AM on Aug. 6 by gunshots.

As the night curfew in force throughout Sri Lanka ended one hour later, the bolder ones ventured out of doors. They found the bodies of six youths – five dead, one dying of gunshot injuries – their hands tied behind their backs, lying on the beach.

The injured boy told them he was from Ganemulla, a small town 25 miles from the capital. Mount Lavinia residents say he accused the Special Task Force (STF) – police commandos – of dragging him from his house, bringing him to Colombo and shooting him.

Killings like this happen daily in southern Sri Lanka, where the security forces are hunting down left-wing rebels from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in a major government drive to wipe out what it calls “subversion”.

This, in a nutshell, was Richard’s beat: piecing together, victim by victim, corpse by corpse, the story of the violent insurgency and still-more-violent counter-insurgency that throttled Sri Lanka in the late 80s. And it wasn’t the first time—the piece took its title from remarks delivered in Parliament on 9 August 1989 by the then-opposition leader Sirimavo Bandaranaike, demanding the creation of a parliamentary committee to look into arrests and indiscriminate killings, which had topped 1,000 just that month:

Bandaranaike, who crushed a JVP-led student insurrection when she was prime minister in 1971, yesterday chose to make a distinction between the JVP and the youth who support it in her apocalyptic statement in Parliament.

“These are our future generations. Why have they resorted to violence? Because they have no education — schools and universities are closed, they have no hope of employment, they see injustice and corruption all around them, she declared.

“If you have no answer except to meet indiscriminate killings with equally brutal reprisals . . . You will build up a monster no-one will be able to control”, Bandaranaike warned.

The article goes on to detail the particular horrors of that time, namely the lawlessness that rendered the entire population either victim or suspect, and the rest terrorised into silence:

Masked men travelling in vehicles without license plates were abducting young men from their homes. Human rights activists say most of the “secret” killings are carried out by plainclothes squads from the regular forces. The government closed down schools in Sinhalese areas in June and followed up by sending the military onto southern campuses July 11.

Members of the campus group “Students for Human Rights” say the 250 students taken into custody were the lucky ones.

“Most of those arrested on campus are still alive, although in detention”, says “Kumar”, a spokesperson for the group. “It is when the students go back to their homes that they are in the greatest danger. The local police or military come for them with a license to kill.”

The “tire treatment” is a common form of punishment meted out to suspected rebels. Villagers and townspeople alike have grown used to the sight of bodies smouldering on public roadways, charred flesh indistinguishable from burning rubber.

Other suspects were blindfolded, tied to trees or lampposts, and shot – often after being tortured.

Under Sri Lanka’s harsh emergency regulations and anti-subversion laws, police or military officers can dispose of dead bodies without autopsies and detain anyone for up to 18 months without producing them in court.

“We have filed hundreds of habeas corpus applications (calling on police to produce arrested people before magistrates) but under the law, the government need not do anything about these”, explained human rights lawyer Prins Gunesekera.

Gunesekera says he himself is in danger. He and another lawyer, Kanchana Abeypala, have been placed on an “endangered” list by the human rights organisation Amnesty International after they were warned to stop campaigning against rights abuses.

A third lawyer from the human rights lobby, Charitha Lankapura, was murdered – allegedly by the STF – in early July after returning home from a student demonstration.

Surely, no clearer prologue to his own death could have been written: abducted from his home without charge or warrant, shot, and his body dumped in the sea. No investigation, no explanations. For decades I have listened to my elders talk in circles of speculation as to the causes and culprits behind Richard’s murder—Why? On whose orders? For what?—without ever arriving at an undivided answer.

*

It is tempting to surmise that Richard’s clarity of analysis and reporting were reason enough for the government to remove him. In a dispatch from 22 May 1989, Richard notes:

Pride stalks Sri Lanka today, in a variety of guises. There is the racial pride of the Sinhalese, who make up 70 percent of the island’s 17 million people (mostly Buddhist), as well as the pride of the 1.4 million-strong Tamil minority.

There is also the pride of two fierce militant groups, one Sinhalese and one Tamil; the pride of two armies, one Sri Lankan and one Indian; and the political pride of their governments in Colombo and New Delhi.

He goes on to detail the political manoeuvres required to juggle multiple conflicts, with the government funnelling its armed forces into the “economically underprivileged southern belt” to root out the JVP while simultaneously directing a stream of soldiers to the Northern Province to wage war against the LTTE. All this, Richard notes, while the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF), by order of Rajiv Gandhi, were half-cajoling, half-strong-arming the Tigers to a negotiating table, upon which lay the highly divisive devolution plan outlined in the 1987 Indo-Lanka accords.

“The JVP and the shadowy organisation suspected of being its armed wing (known as the Patriotic People’s Movement or DJV) [are] implacably opposed to Tamil separatism or anything remotely approaching it”, he wrote, adding that on the flip side of the coin, the LTTE remained hell-bent on the creation of a wholly separate Tamil homeland, despite a strong political tide amongst more moderate Tamil forces that would have accepted an agreement for regional autonomy. Richard concluded:

A triangle of power [now governs the country]. If [President Ranasinghe] Premadasa, a shrewd self-taught professional politician, wants his presidency to get off the ground, he will have to deal swiftly with two men who, like him, have simple origins – Tamil Tiger guerilla leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and JVP supremo Rohana Wijeweera.

The actions of this trio will determine Sri Lanka’s immediate future – as well as the fate, in life or death terms, of the country’s 16.4 million people.

It was the kind of journalism I aspired to: clean, clear, concise, and contextual, with a beating heart that seemed able to keep time with the louder pulse of the nation. Nothing seditious or revolutionary. No call to arms. Nothing but a writer’s quiet plea for sanity or humanity to prevail amidst a massacre. It was not, to my mind, the kind of blazing scroll that an artist might—even for the faintest moment—think they’d die for.

The unasked question being, of course, Was it worth it, in the end? These dispatches from Sri Lanka, written in a time of terror, delivered to an international audience that could do nothing to stop the bloodshed—was it worth it? How, really, do you value a human life against the value of his or her work?

Such was the diabolic arithmetic I was being forced to work out in real time as a small team of freedom fighters working on behalf of Russell Maroon Shoatz pressed me for an answer on the proposed assignment of working with a complete stranger to tell his life’s story. I read and reread Richard’s articles, and read and reread Maroon’s letters, which had begun to arrive in my mailbox on Georgia Avenue NW Washington, DC. I observed the words of both men fusing together in unnerving ways. Notions of duty, legacy, and artistic responsibility jostled in my mind with a dull, pervasive anxiety at the prospect of committing myself to a literary work with the highest possible stakes: another person’s life and freedom, and—if I was to follow the mad logic that resulted in Richard’s murder—possibly my own.

“Let’s say I write this book, with a high-security prisoner who’s accused of murder and who calls himself a prisoner of war,” I said to my father, trying to laugh off my deepest fears. “What’s the worst they can do to me? What’s the worst that could happen?”

To which he answered, quietly and without pause, “Deportation. Incarceration. Torture.”

I grieved that response for a long time, perhaps because it was the first time I had truly confronted the fear that the survivors of Sri Lanka’s violence—my own family, myself—carry with them, in their bones. I grieved also for these two men, one who had been killed, and the other who’d been sentenced to a different kind of death, which in the twisted parlance of the American justice system is known as Life. Maroon was serving back-to-back life sentences in solitary confinement. His letters to me were composed in the laboured hand of an old man with a youthful spirit who has been made to stare into the black abyss and see right through it, to the beauty and the hope.

I shared some of Richard’s work with Maroon, and told him, briefly, the story. He wrote back at once, soulful and wise: When we speak truth to power… When we speak truth to power… When we speak truth to power. It was, in a way, an answer to the question I had not asked, that my family have prowled around all my life, that Maroon had, I later learned, been avoiding and confronting for decades in the screaming quietude of a cage measuring five by seven feet: Was it worth it, in the end?

A year later I met Maroon in person, down in the dungeon of the State Penitentiary at Mahanoy, an all-male prison in rural Pennsylvania, in a visiting room bisected by a sheet of bulletproof glass. Throughout the visit Maroon remained shackled at the ankles and at the wrists, a bright-eyed, ageing, and agile man with whom I would collaborate for 12 years on his autobiography I Am Maroon. He did not live to see its release. It was published, posthumously, on 3 September 2024, nearly three years after Maroon died of cancer.

People often ask my family how we make sense of Richard’s life and death. It was not until I met Maroon and undertook a kind of doctoral degree in American studies under his tutelage, with his supporters acting as my academic advisors and the prisons of Pennsylvania serving as my campus, that I began to understand how legacies work: they must be allowed to live. Nothing finishes a person quite like memorialising them; nostalgia and romanticising will make quick work of whatever is left. Maroon did not suffer from nostalgia—probably because, I always assumed, it’s a deadly disease for a prisoner serving a life sentence. He was a great believer in living legacies. He mentored countless young men who were thrown into the penitentiary alongside him and saw many of them off into the free world while he continued to Do His Time. Dozens have said they regard him as a father-figure, as their greatest teacher.

As for me, writing together with Maroon, through the bars and over all the hurdles thrown at us—visits cancelled and monitored, our correspondence surveilled, letters destroyed or returned to the sender, threats and lawsuits—seemed like the most sensible way to honour Richard’s legacy in my own lifetime. Mainly because it helped me to do away with that blasted question: Was it worth it, in the end?

Turns out it’s not a question at all, but a slow reckoning with language itself, with these words that are strong enough to kill a man, and free a man. And what emerges from that reckoning is not doubt or unknowing, but a certain certainty, that you have to use words to make sense of them. You have to let them play, let them remake themselves: We are worth more than the ends they devise for us. We live, and live on, because we are worthy of life.

 

Kanya D’Almeida is a writer, and winner of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She is the co-author of I Am Maroon: The True Story of an American Political Prisoner, available now from Hachette Books.

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Sustainable Human Development – article

Reducing inequalities for equitable, sustainable human development

Nadeera Rajapakse

Policy Tribune, Vol 1 -Issue 2/ January 2025 The Bandaranaike Academy for Leadership & Public Policy

https://balpp.com/publications/

Policy Brief

Reducing Inequalities for Sustainable, Equitable Human Development

By Professor Nadeera Rajapakse

In the context of the economic (and political) crisis and its impact on individuals, groups, and communities, recovery measures need to address existing structural inequalities for two main reasons: first, because without removing inequalities, widespread economic and social prosperity is impossible, or is at best inequitable and non-inclusive. Second, inequalities are harmful in themselves, not only as effects on economic growth. In other words, like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) highlight [1] , inequality is a standalone goal as well as a cross­cutting issue.

The brief makes policy recommendations aiming for meaningful, inclusive, sustainable economic development in Sri Lanka’s post-crisis context. By meaningful, we focus on people and not only on infrastructure; by inclusive we refer to policies that take into account plural identities, and by sustainable we target long-term goals over short-term profits. By using Amartya Sen’s concept of human development as enhancing personal and collective freedoms alongside GDP growth (1984, 1999) [2] , the recommendations made here aim to address the existing structural weaknesses and inequalities that have been exacerbated by Sri Lanka’s political and economic crisis. Interdisciplinary analysis is essential to take stock of intersecting categories of identity that influence inequalities. We focus on two areas, debt refinancing and the export of low-skilled labour, which are related concerns in Sri Lanka today, with widespread effects on human development.

Debt Refinancing

As a result of authoritarian political decisions on large-scale loss-inducing infrastructure investments and policies, the country faced severe foreign exchange shortages culminating in a debt crisis amounting to 103.8% of GDP as of March 2023 (Dias, 2023). [3] This crisis hit households at a time when many had not yet recovered from the shocks of COVID-19. After struggling through months of shortages of gas, fuel, electricity, medicine and many other essential items, the people took to the streets in protest.

With a change in leadership propelled by the people’s protests, the government’s response was to secure an International Monetary Fund bailout in 2022. In June 2024, the IMF agreed to a 48-month Extended Fund Facility providing the country with immediate access to about US $336 million, bringing the total funds disbursed to about US $1 billion (IMF executive board, 2024). These financing deals were linked to the IMF’s 2023 debt sustainability and requires debt to be paid down through high budget surplus.

Sri Lanka’s debt is held by both foreign and domestic creditors. Foreign creditors have been categorised into various groups [4] , of which we can differentiate bilateral creditors and ISB (International Sovereign Bond) holders and other commercial creditors. Negotiations are underway with bilateral creditors for debt relief, while ISB holders have suggested GDP growth-dependent debt restructuring. This means that debt repayments will be made according to GDP growth rates, with the country expected to pay higher interest rates on estimated future growth rates. Thus, the 28 percent debt concession granted at present could be reduced to 15 percent if growth rates surpass the limit set by the IMF (Kuruwita, 2024). In exchange for this emergency loan, the IMF imposed a series of conditions. Briefly, “further trade liberalization to promote exports and foreign direct investment; labor reforms to upgrade skills and increase female labor force participation; and state-owned enterprise reforms to improve efficiency and fiscal transparency, contain fiscal risks, and promote a level playing field for the private sector” (IMF, 2024).

These conditions along with the GDP-related concessions, calling for a budget surplus, which in turn requires greater inflows of foreign exchange, bring us to the second issue discussed here: Sri Lanka’s highest foreign exchange earner: low-skilled migrant workers.

Export of Low-skilled Migrant Labour

Contributing to 5.1% of GDP, low-skilled women migrant domestic workers (maids) overall remittances surpass earnings coming from tea and garment exports (World Bank blog, 2022). While, on the one hand, remittances are seen as exerting a positive effect on development, poverty alleviation and unemployment (Ratha, 2023), on the other hand, this type of gendered labour is characterised by exploitative and abusive working conditions, the lack of rights, and multiple layers of risk and vulnerabilities. The government has been unable to protect migrant workers and often use restrictions and bans as a way of addressing the dangers they face (Weeraratne, 2022). However, as Amartya Sen’s development framework shows, restrictions imposed on the women’s (and men’s) right to migrate and find employment opportunities only exacerbate the risks. Instead of effectively dissuading them from migrating, restrictions force migrants to seek irregular, informal means of mobility, thus exposing them to even greater vulnerabilities. Just as the IMF emphasises female labour force participation, the lack of alternative employment and of sustainable livelihood options are seen as push factors driving women to seek employment abroad despite the risks.

Exacerbating Structural Inequalities Prevalent in the Country

Inequalities

The IMF debt finance scheme was hailed by many with relief as the only resort for Sri Lanka to emerge from its debt crisis. However, many others spoke out against its debilitating effects on the wider population. The bail out came with austerity measures, including cuts in public spending, steep increases in utility tariffs, food and energy costs, indirect and regressive taxation, limited cash handouts as social security. While we separate inequalities into various categories for purposes of clarity, we insist that these categories overlap and need to be considered as intersecting and compounding factors.

Gender-based inequalities : Due to their unpaid caregiving roles at household level, women often shoulder responsibilities of ensuring families are fed, looked after and educated, even as they face falling wages, rising food, electricity and water bills, precarious and informal employment and lack of access to meaningful social security. Consequently, the current debt refinancing proposals, which prioritise external creditors and ensure re-entry into finance markets, bail out private finance (both local and global) by putting the burden on the workers, and especially women workers – both paid and unpaid. [5]

Domestic debt restructuring has placed the burden on public pension funds, with teachers and nurses, among others, having their pensions slashed. Cuts in public spending on education, health and social security will further aggravate the burden faced by women, but not only: income, age and ethnic origins are also categories upon which inequalities thrive.

Income inequalities: Colombo may look dazzling with its luxury hotels and malls, but the crises faced by working class families tell a different story. Research has shown that the quality of life of working-class families has deteriorated and that they are still battling with everyday expenses. Accumulated bills and shortages have put them in situations of severe debt, compounded by the increases in the prices of essential items, following VAT increases. They are at a “point of no return” (Colombo Urban Lab, 2023), taking loans to survive, rather than to navigate one-off shocks. Consequently, reducing inflation and bringing food prices down are welcome, though not sufficient to ensure long-term sustainable growth. Here too women face much of the burden of managing the daily needs of their families and face the pressure of negotiating loans. In a situation where alternative funding is absent, they turn to microfinance and moneylenders (Arambepola, 2019). Thus, understanding the complex and intersecting needs driving households to debt is essential when discussing the regulation of microfinance and informal credit markets.

Age-related inequalities: Older people are particularly at risk during the current situation as a result of underlying health conditions, social and economic disadvantages, and insufficient social protection mechanisms. In addition, the economic crisis led to greater food insecurity and inaccessible healthcare for older people. “Many older people aren’t receiving their full list of prescribed medicines and cannot afford to buy privately. Some have stopped taking their medications altogether, waiting until the drugs are available again. Others are turning to alternative medicines such as Ayurvedic or traditional methods which can only serve as a temporary measure” (Helpage International, 2022).

The domestic debt restructuring also worsens the situation for older people, who tend to either be out of paid work or earning very little and whose pensions and available savings are very quickly used up on food and healthcare. According to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey of 2019, people aged 65-years-old and above are the poorest group in Sri Lanka (Department of Census and Statistics, Multidimensional Poverty in Sri Lankan, 2019).

Minority rights-related inequalities: Crises and conflicts tend to exert disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups, which include ethnic and religious minority groups in Sri Lanka, who have faced long-term patterns of discrimination (Hennayake, 2006). The State needs to recognise and remedy human rights violations to ensure justice, safety and security, essential capabilities for inclusive human development and growth (Sen, 1999). Justice is required to address enforced disappearances, land disputes, disenfranchised populations and environmental issues.

Harassment and discrimination on the basis of identity-related issues (gender, sexual origin, sexuality, religion, ethnic origin, etc.) not only impede productivity on labour markets, thus hampering economic growth, but also cause harm to society’s wellbeing (Ariyarathne, 2022).

“Decisions on economic policies must be guided by Sri Lanka’s international human rights obligations, including by ensuring adequate social protection. (…) Sri Lanka’s creditors should provide the Government with the fiscal space needed to realise economic, social and cultural rights” (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2024).

The failure to protect minority rights and well-being creates a big push factor propelling risky, costly emigration, borne by society at large.

 

“(…) the dominant three foreign exchange earners for the country – garments, tea exports and migrant workers to the Middle East – rest on the efforts of women workers” (Ruwanpura, 2022).

The unforgiving spiral of debt servicing without considering equitable growth: The imperatives of debt service put huge pressures on essential social spending in Sri Lanka, even before being forced into debt default and having to approach the IMF for assistance. Sri Lanka now faces massive constraints even in continuing with earlier social spending levels, much less in responding adequately to the need for greater social protection in the face of the economic crisis caused by debt distress. The lack of professional skills, which would be further widened by reduced public spending, and the lack of imagination in absorbing women gainfully into the economy, along with the pressures to tend to her dependents will not remove incentives pushing women to migrate. However, valuing her work and enabling freedoms to migrate safely and work in decent conditions are feasible policy orientations.

Recommendations

Deprivations are intersecting. Some workers face numerous compounding deprivations stemming from gender and ethnic discrimination, such as women employed in the garment industry and tea-plantation workers, especially those from minority Tamil groups. Policy conditionalities associated with debt relief have rarely shown an understanding of gender dynamics, not recognising the different ways that women and men – across intersectional identities – interact with the economy, as paid and unpaid workers, as household providers, as family members and as citizens (Ghosh, 2021).

Universal social protection “Social security is not charity but a human right of all people. Women’s groups are demanding that universal social security in this time of crisis be made binding and enforceable by law. Without meaningful expansion of social safety nets and increasing fiscal allocation, targeted schemes like Aswesuma will not benefit the millions of families hit hard by the crisis.” (Dias, 2023).

Sri Lanka must move away from targeted social welfare schemes to systems that offer universal social protection, particularly in the context of crises. Targeted poverty reduction schemes have their weaknesses and in Sri Lanka, inefficient targeting as well as outdated eligibility criteria – those for the Aswesuma welfare scheme were developed before the debt crisis – result in many vulnerable groups slipping through the net. The multidimensionality of vulnerability and poverty also needs to be considered, going beyond basic income related criteria. [6]

It should also be recognised that 66 per cent of the labour force work informally, including women who do unpaid domestic care work, so have little access to social protection schemes. Similarly, only 40 to 50 per cent of older people receive any form of benefit such as pensions, provident funds, or cash payments (Helpage International, 2022). Contradictory measures like targeting the already meagre pension funds of Sri Lanka’s wage workers, only exacerbate existing class, gender, and ethnic inequalities. In particular, any requirements of public spending cuts that reduce employment in public services or reduce wages of public workers, should be avoided.

It is unrealistic to expect specific programmes targeted to women/children to undo the damage created by broader macroeconomic policies that reduce employment and livelihoods. Therefore, as far as possible, policies should be universal so as to prevent unjustified exclusion of those already disadvantaged in other ways. [7]

Collective bargaining for women migrant workers

Commodification is a phenomenon afflicting women migrants, by which they are recognised only for the service they provide, and hence low-skilled and low valued (Rajapakse, 2023). The unlimited supply of low-skilled labour from competing sending countries in the face of asymmetric power wielded by receiving countries is a situation that facilitates commodification of migrant labour. Sri Lanka’s National Migration Policy has the protection of workers as a core policy area, which can be made more efficient if sending countries negotiate collectively for their migrant workers’ rights. Turning regional rivalries in South Asia into potential collaborative endeavours, such as the Colombo Process, is imperative (IOM, 2003). [8]

The nature of vulnerabilities as well as the exploitation and abuses that low-skilled workers from the region generally experience is similar despite the differences in their nationalities. South Asian countries need to demand better terms of employment and increased protection for their workers. Most sending countries have ratified conventions and laws aimed at protecting their migrant workers. These are nonetheless ineffectual if destination countries, especially in the Middle East, have not. Developing common solutions, strategies and facilities, such as insisting on domestic work being included in labour laws in destination countries, setting up common safe houses and transit homes in destination countries, in coordination with embassies/diplomatic missions of SAARC Member States need to be done collectively. [9]

Avoiding fiscal austerity

Imposing fiscal austerity measures should be avoided because countercyclical policies are required during the downswing and debt relief measures should be directed towards ensuring such countercyclicality. Regressive indirect taxation measures like value added tax (VAT) that increase prices of essential commodities are anti-poor and anti-women and can inhibit economic recovery. They also have a significant gender dimension for female consumers and producers, since women-run Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) are more likely to be unregistered, and therefore less able to redeem tax payments on their inputs, which are already likely to be more expensive as they are buying on a smaller scale. Instead, the structure of taxation can be changed to focus on more progressive taxation, in particular through equitable taxation of multinationals, taxes on extreme wealth, taxes on financial transactions.

Ensuring equitable labour-market participation

Since labour market participation is often at the core of IMF conditions, especially that of women, the country should take measures to ensure equal wages to men and women in both the public and private sectors. There needs to be appropriate measures for internal debt relief, especially for women-owned MSMEs in informal credit arrangements. It is important consider specific requirement of women borrowers and borrowers from previous conflict-zones who are less likely to have collateral and land titles that provide access to credit. It is also important to recognise the very specific needs of women entrepreneurs, especially with regard to access to inputs and markets. For example, facilitating childcare arrangements for working mothers and migrant mothers. Policies need to facilitate greater associations and unions of women workers, both employed, self-employed and migrant.

Considering debt cancellation

Scholars have pointed to the possibility of debts unpayable being cancelled. Debt justice movements across the developing world have urged for the cancellation of all unsustainable and illegitimate debts in a manner that is ambitious, unconditional, and without carrying repercussions for future market access. Past cases show how reducing debt stock and debt payments allow countries to increase their public financing for urgent domestic needs. The IMF’s Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA), which measures sovereign vulnerability to sovereign debt stress, must incorporate SDG financing needs, climate vulnerabilities as well as human rights and gender equality commitments into its methodology (Ghosh, 2021). Sri Lanka is strengthening ties and membership with the BRICS and this is an opportunity to suggest greater solidarity, cooperation and stronger governance: in other words, opportunity to discuss alternatives to ultraliberal, competitive, market-based economic policies.

Strengthening Justice and Human Rights

It is essential to strengthen Sri Lanka’s Human Rights framework in order to enhance the freedoms of every person by repealing discriminatory laws (for example, 365 and 365A of the Penal Code of Sri Lanka, which criminalise same sex intimacy) and ensuring that the country move away from a military state by repealing the prevention of terrorism act. (Rajasingham Senanayake, 2011). Overall, in keeping with the goal of greater accountability and governance, stakeholders and experts need to be continuously included in participatory, deliberations on decision-making, laws, truth and reconciliation commissions and anti-corruption efforts (Orjuela, 2008).

Conclusion

We need to break the vicious spiral: because there is more power given to external creditors, maintaining investor confidence and avoiding the risk of capital flight are priorities underpinning all macroeconomic policies. As a result, public spending is further curtailed to make sure eventual capital flight can be absorbed without expanding the budget deficit. Consequently, there is lower social security and greater deprivation for many categories of people. Therefore, countries like Sri Lanka, with the greatest need of social protection for its most vulnerable categories of people, spend the least amount on it through public expenditure, which is, on the contrary directed towards debt servicing. [10]

Acknowledging that broader development depends on equitable development and considering the detrimental effects neoliberal policies have exerted in Sri Lanka, Sen’s idea of finding the middle path – combining the advantages of liberal and open economic systems with strong welfare and social protection policies and governance – offers alternative possibilities. Finally, the struggles for debt justice and overall economic justice need to be linked to the struggles for equality and freedom.

Notes

  1. SDG 10 Reduced inequalities: “Inequalities based on income, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, class, ethnicity, religion and opportunity continue to persist across the world. Inequality threatens long-term social and economic development, harms poverty reduction and destroys people’s sense of fulfilment and self-worth. This, in turn, can breed crime, disease and environmental degradation. We cannot achieve sustainable development and make the planet better for all if people are excluded from the chance for a better life”. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/inequality/
  2. “The Capability approach judges individual well-being not in terms of goods consumed nor in terms of utility satisfaction, but rather on the realized functions, i.e., the set of alternatives a person has”. In Sen’s words, it is a “perspective of freedom in a positive sense: who can do what” (Sen 1984, 376).
  3. Political crisis because: “This latest round of ‘odious debt’ in Sri Lanka was created by an authoritarian and corrupt government, led by a President who initially fled the country rather than take responsibility for the economic catastrophe he unleashed. If the Pandora papers are anything to go by, a former President and an entire corrupt family clearly accumulated personal wealth at the expense of Sri Lankan people. This is an economic catastrophe that was enabled and facilitated by highly paid financiers at places like Blackrock and other private investment firms, which now hold almost 35% of Sri Lankan external debt. Their windfall profits during a global pandemic indicate the extent to which they have profited at a time of human misery” (K Ruwanpura, 2022). Also, it has been termed odious debt because “much of it is odious debt used to extract funds by both global creditors and local elite, without using it in the interests of the broader citizenry” (Yukthi, 13 May 2024).
  4. “These creditor groups are the Official Creditor Committee of official bilateral lenders (co-chaired by France, India, and Japan), who hold $5.8 billion of Lankan debt; the China Exim Bank ($4.2 billion); other Official Creditors (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan – $0.3 billion); ISB holders ($14.2 billion); China Development Bank ($3.2 billion) and other commercial creditors (under $0.2 billion)” (Kuruwita, 2024)
  5. Amartya Sen refers to the “social technology” that enables the economic system to function thanks to the invisible contribution of women performing unpaid work (1991). $10.8 trillion – the total earnings of women’s unpaid care work as reported by Oxfam (2020)
  6. “According to the UNDP report on multidimensional vulnerability of Sri Lankans, as many as 12.34 million people in Sri Lanka (55.7% of Sri Lankans) are multi-dimensionally vulnerable, and yet only 2 million households have been selected as beneficiaries under Aswesuma” (Colombo Urban Lab, 2023).
  7. “In the 2023 budget, the Government allocated LKR 539 billion for defense and public security while household cash transfers and food relief (which includes all the key social welfare programs such as Samurdhi, allowances for elders, disabled, kidney disease, school meal programs and nutrition programs for mothers and children) was allocated LKR 187 billion. Sri Lanka continues to remain one of the countries in the region that spend the least of its GDP on social welfare” (Colombo Urban Lab, 2023).
  8. “The Regional Consultative Process on Overseas Employment and Contractual Labor for Countries of Origin in Asia or the Colombo Process aims to provide a forum for Asian labor-sending countries to (…) Share experiences, lessons learned and best practices on overseas employment and contractual labor; Consult on issues faced by overseas workers, and labor sending and receiving states, and offers practical solutions for the well-being of overseas workers, particularly the vulnerable overseas workers; Optimize development benefits from organized overseas employment, and enhance dialogue with countries of destination; and review and monitor the implementation of the ministerial recommendations and identify further steps for action” (IOM, 2003)
  9. “(…) SAARC countries, including Sri Lanka, have been in a search to find broader regional groupings that are capable of meeting particularly their economic objectives in a sustainable manner. These have included joining organizations such as the BIMSTEC and the IORA. Sri Lanka has most recently sought membership of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)” (Colombopage quoted in Ariyasinha, 2023). There are increasing calls that Sri Lanka seeks the membership of the BRICS – the group of emerging economies (Ariyasinha, 2023).
  10. “(…) comparing debt service payments to core social spending (covering expenditure on education, health and social protection). In upper middle income countries, just under half of the amount of social spending was spent on debt service, but in lower middle income countries (where such spending is all the more required) the debt service payments were more than social spending. Shockingly, in the low income countries, debt service payments came to 171 per cent of social spending! These are not just the poorest countries, with significant proportions of absolutely hungry people, but also the most climate-vulnerable countries, which are already experiencing a range of climate-related shocks that affect ordinary people” (Gosh, 2023).

References

Arambepola, C. Romeshun, K. 2019, Debt at My Doorstep: Microfinance Practices and Effects on Women in Sri Lanka, Centre for Poverty Analysis

Ariyarathne, Kaushalya, 2022. Impact of Sri Lanka’s economic crisis on LGBT+ population Employment, Westminster Foundation for Democracy, UK, January

Aryasinha, Ravinatha, 2023, A ‘Global Order’ in Flux: Challenges and Opportunities for Sri Lanka. Lakshman Kadirgama Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies.

Colombo Urban Lab, 2023. Borrowing to eat. The Impact of Sri Lanka’s economic crisis on Colombo’s working class poor. September

Department of Census and Statistics. 2019. Multidimensional Poverty in Sri Lanka. www.statistics.gov.lk/Poverty/Staticallnfor

Dias, Prashani. 2023. Expert’s Take: Six ways Sri Lanka’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security will support women during crises, UNWomen, Thursday, 8 June

Ghosh, Jayati, 2023. The International Financial System and Women’s Poverty. Background paper for CSW68 Expert Group Meeting | UN Women – Headquarters

Ghosh, Jayati. 2021. Gender concerns in debt relief, IIED, London. Helpage International, 2022.

Sri Lanka’s economic crisis hits older people hard – an urgent call for action Hennayake, Nalani. 2006. Culture, Politics, and Development in Postcolonial Sri Lanka, Lexington Books, Oxford

ILO, 2014. SAARC commits to helping migrant workers, https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/saarc- commitsDhelping-migrant-workers

IMF Executive Board, 2024. IMF Executive Board Concludes 2024 Article IV Consultation with Sri Lanka and Completes the Second Review Under the Extended Fund Facility. https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2024/06/12/pr-24214-sri-lanka-imf-concludes-2024- article-ivDconsultation-completes-2nd-review-under-eff

IOM, 2003. Regional Consultative Process on Overseas Employment and Contractual Labor for Countries of Origin in Asia (Colombo Process). https://www.iom.int/regional-consultative-process- overseasDemployment-and-contractual-labor-countries-origin-asia-colombo-process

Kuruwita, Rathindra, 2024. “Sri Lanka’s Debt Restructuring Deal: Economic Relief or Creditor Windfall?” The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2024/07/sri-lankas-debt-restructuring-deal- economic-relief-orDcreditor-windfall/

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2024, Sri Lanka: Transformational changes needed for accountability and reconciliation – UN report. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press- releases/2024/08/sriDlanka-transformational-changes-needed-accountability-and-reconciliation

Orjuela, Camilla, 2008. The Identity Politics of Peacebuilding: Civil Society in War-Torn Sri Lanka. Sage Publications.

Rajapakse, Nadeera. 2023. “Women Migrant Workers and Market Forces: Toward an Inter­disciplinary Representation of Female Labor Migration,” Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, volume 41, pages 3-25, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Rajasingham Senanayake, Darini. 2011. “Is Post-War Sri Lanka Following the ‘Military Business Model’”. Economic and Political Weekly, April 2-8, Vol. 46, No. 14, pp. 27-30

Ratha,                     Dilip.                    2023.                      Resilient                                Remittances,         IMF.

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2023/09/B2B-resilient-remittances-dilip-ratha

Revollo, P.E. 2020. Time to Care: Methodology note. Oxfam. https://www.google.com/url? sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstrea m/handle/10546/620928/rr-time-to-care-methodology-200120-

en.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjk4PjJ_rGJAxVVRaQEHTvhOKIQFnoECBUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3epYjJj4 vVyW pH5VH3vZmv

Ruwanpura, K, Muchhala, B, & Rao, S. 2022. Gendering the debt crisis: Feminists on Sri Lanka’s financial crisis, https://developingeconomics.org/2022/12/02/gendering-the-debt-crisis-feminists-on- sri-lankasDfinancial-crisis /

Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Alfred Knopf

Sen, Amartya. 1991. On Ethics and Economics, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.

Weeraratne, Bilesha. 2022. Good Riddance to the FBR: What Next to Increase Migrant Remittances to Sri Lanka? Jul 04,https://www.ips.lk/talkingeconomics/?author=42,

Yukthi 2024, YUKTHI Calls for Rejecting the Recent Bond Deal, https://yukthisl.org/yukthi-calls- forQrejecting-the-recent-bond-deal/

Yukthi, 2024, A platform for working people in Sri Lanka’s economic crisis. 13 May.

https://yukthisl.org/debt-justice

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New publication: History of Women’s Health in Sri Lanka

A Critical History of Women’s Health in Modern Sri Lanka
Darshi Thoradeniya,
Orient Black Swan, 2024
 
Book launched held at ICES (International Centre for Ethnic Studies):
 
Sri Lanka gained prominence in international policy circles as an apparent ‘success story’ in the initial two decades of its independence. Crucial to this perception is women’s health, given its central importance to the indicators of decreasing population growth rate and decreasing mortality. However, how have individual women’s bodies fared within the twentieth-century Sri Lankan stories of development?

Through an examination of the history of women’s health in this island nation, A Critical History of Women’s Health in Modern Sri Lanka sets out to answer this question. Darshi Thoradeniya traces women’s health from the initial days of birth control and family planning, to development and population control, to militarization and financialization of women’s bodies. Questioning this ‘success story’, she shows how women’s bodies were framed around the notion of social reproduction for the nation-building project of post-independence Sri Lanka.

Through meticulous research, interviews, policies and advertisements, and oral narratives, the author highlights how the Sri Lankan state made use of women’s health, while at the same time silencing women’s corporeal experiences.

She argues that even though women’s health serves the state-building project and women’s bodies serve the nation-building project, women were neither subjects nor objects of these two projects. Women’s reproductive bodies were, rather, the ground for a complex and competing set of struggles on population, family planning, development, modernization and ethno-nationalism of post-independence Sri Lanka

This book will be a valuable addition to the fields of public health and public policy, history, women’s studies, history of medicine and the sociology of medicine.”

https://www.ices.lk/event-details/a-critical-history-of-womens-health-in-modern-sri-lanka

 

 

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Exhibition – Rooted. History of Malaiyaga Tamils

https://www.sundaytimes.lk/241013/plus/keeping-memory-alive-the-exhibition-on-malaiyaga-tamils-shows-the-need-for-justice-573767.html

Keeping memory alive: The exhibition on Malaiyaga Tamils shows the need for justice

Sunday Times
 

A fistful of earth tied to a corner of a sari pallu hangs as one of the exhibits in the old Matara courthouse. This display was recreated by Sujata, a welfare officer at Oliphant Estate in Nuwara Eliya, inspired by a story among the Malaiyaga community. During the forced repatriation of Malaiyaga Tamils from Sri Lanka to India in the 1970s and 1980s, some women would take soil from the land of their birth, Sri Lanka, to in effect consecrate temples they made in India. This speaks of the powerful emotional tie to the country from which they were forcibly uprooted. This precious earth from a kovil was believed to have curative properties.

At a time when colonial histories are being widely re-examined and historical narratives energetically contested across the world, the Malaiyaga Tamils have mostly been confined to a footnote. ‘Is the tea plant a tea bush or a tree?’ asked Velusamy Weerasin-gham, who was moderating a discussion on the Malaiyaga community last weekend in Matara, part of a series of events curated by the Collective for Historical Dialogue and Memory around the exhibition, ‘Rooted: Histories of the Malaiyaga Tamils’. Some say a bush. But it is a tree, he corrects them, making a broader point.

“The Malaiyagam is symbolic of this. The colonial Raj and majority communities pruned the plant aggressively to extract the maximum yield, but, if given the right conditions, we can also blossom into a healthy tall tree,” he says. The term ‘Malaiyaga’ means ‘from the hills’ and was introduced in the 1950s when they were still referred to as ‘kallatoni’ or illicit boat people. The term Malaiyaga acknowledges their roots to the land.

The singer T.M. Krishna in an article in late September recounted meeting a young Malaiyaga Tamil writer who regarded the long-used official categorisation of Indian-Origin Tamils “as a bane; (that) only placed them in no-man’s land.”

Inevitably, while viewing the exhibition, debates sometimes arose with members from the majority community over the term ‘plantation workers’ or ‘estate workers’ to refer to the Malaiyagam. A panel at the exhibition duly addressed these issues, going back to derogatory terms used for the community and how it is necessary to change. Even today, many people in Sinhala and English use ‘wathu demala’ or ‘estate Tamils’.

The idea of holding an exhibition to mark 200 years of the arrival of the Malaiyaga Tamils was conceived by CHDM in late 2022. The first recorded effort to introduce Indian labour on plantations here was in 1823.

Collaborating with the Institute for Social Development and the Tea Plantation Workers’ Museum and Archive in Gampola, CHDM was able to display artefacts such as the kambili (blanket) and thappu (frame drum) that represent a sense of belonging for the Malaiyaga Tamils. A session with leading Malaiyagam academics and professionals provided feedback on the exhibition’s framework, especially to highlight the community’s own efforts to demand rights as opposed to being viewed as passive victims. With the support of ISD, CHDM joined a workshop in Hatton in March 2023 with poets, journalists, teachers, public servants and activists and documented their memories of these objects.

Last weekend, a group of young cultural artists from Nawalapitiya performed with the thappu. This drum was used by the first migrants to ward off wild animals as they made a perilous journey of 150 miles to tea plantations, carrying bundles of tamarind rice and basic provisions that suggested they expected the journey to be much shorter. Thappu player Moses Suresh, 28, and the others in his group are former students of the Kandaloya Tamil Maha Vidyalaya, whose inspiring principal is Yatiyantota Karunagaran. The school actively encourages students to embrace Malaiyagam cultural heritage, learning folk songs and organising street dramas.

Suresh and his friends are completing their university education at the Eastern University in Batticaloa, a huge achievement given that members of the community still struggle to be on par with national educational attainment levels. When they light-heartedly demonstrated beats of a deity-possessed man, the deity delivered a message through the medium: “It is your…duty as educated youth…..to preserve…..this heritage for the future.”

Voices of the community such as Karunagaran were presented through an audio-visual installation to reinforce that Malaiyaga Tamils have also risen to become lawyers, award-winning writers, engineers, businessmen and tea-tasters.

In taking the exhibition to Nuwara Eliya, Colombo and now Matara over the past year or so, we have seen that it evokes a range of emotions. One person, aged 65, said sounds could also trigger haunting memories; Oppari Kochchi, or the lamenting coach, was the sound of steam engine trains that was associated with the painful separations of families due to repatriations to India.

The overwhelming response, however, was that many visitors were not aware that the histories of the Malaiyaga were so intertwined with the history of the nation. A young Malaiyaga woman wrote, “I was born and raised in Sri Lanka but stuttered with tears to learn about my ancestors’ journey. Even though they tried so hard to give us a good life, we are still in the same hardships.”

Another visitor to the Colombo exhibition put it, “We are aware of slavery in terms of what happened in Britain and America, but our history books have nothing to show what happened on our own soil.” CHDM hopes to take the exhibition to more cities, including Jaffna, in the next few months.

One huge positive is that in 2024, the community will have the option of identifying themselves as Malaiyaga Tamil on the Sri Lanka census for the first time. But, the need for societal change has a long way to go. Almost two-thirds of the Malaiyagam still live in line rooms, originally constructed during the colonial period with a single source of water and communal latrines. Land distribution measures for the most part were not extended to the community. Groups from the community are in conversations to include their history in textbooks. A public apology by both India and Sri Lanka for the forced repatriation would be a step towards redressing historical wrongs.

Coincidentally, protest posters bearing slogans from earlier years to recent times were placed along the judge’s seat in the Matara courthouse, a metaphor for the community’s continued need for justice.

(Johann Peiris works for the Collective for Historical Dialogue and Memory and was part of the curatorial team of the exhibition)

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New publication on Sri Lanka

Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Sri Lanka

Edited By Kanchana N. RuwanpuraAmjad Mohamed Saleem

2024, Routledge

ABSTRACT

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Sri Lanka offers a comprehensive survey of issues facing the island country and an overview delineating some key moments in the country’s contemporary polity, economy, and sociality.

This book outlines aspects and influences foundational to understanding a country defined by its economic and political turmoil, and rift with public distrust in today’s shifting geopolitics. Chapters by various established scholars highlight this book’s pivotal contribution in situating Sri Lanka’s turmoil and deprivation in this current conjuncture.

The handbook is structured in seven parts:

  • Nations and Nationalism
  • Politics, State and Institutions
  • Economy and Political Economy
  • Work and Life
  • Environment and Environmental Politics
  • Society, Social Systems, and Culture
  • Moment of Flux, Looking Ahead

Each part includes on average six chapters covering the social sciences and humanities to survey emerging and cutting-edge areas of the study of Sri Lanka. Multi-disciplinary in focus, the book also includes an introductory section and concluding section, which creates the space and platform for senior, mid-ranking, and junior academics to engage in dynamic conversation with each other about contemporary Sri Lanka. Including scholarship from Sri Lankan experts, the handbook creates academic output, which chimes with broader calls in academia on decolonising the academic landscape.

An important reference work, this handbook will be of interest to scholars and students from wideranging academic disciplines and a focus on Sri Lanka, Asian and South Asian studies, sociology, environmental politics, development, labour, management, political economy and anthropology.

Open access version available at: Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Sri Lanka | Kanchana N. Ruwanpura,

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Coronavirus and politics in Sri Lanka

Nous attirons votre attention sur un article du professeur Jayadeva Uyangoda, qui fait le point sur la situation à Sri Lanka et sur les implications politiques de la crise sanitaire, que vous pourrez télécharger ci-dessous

(courtesy Sri Lanka Brief)

 

 

 

 

 

“Sri Lanka: No investigations and no accountability in attacks on refugees and asylum-seekers” Amnesty International

Six months after they were violently forced out of their homes, there has been no police investigations into and no accountability for the threats and violence faced by refugees and asylum-seekers in Sri Lanka, Amnesty International and Minority Rights Group International said in a new report published today.

via: amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/sri-lanka-refugees-no-investigation-six-months/?fbclid=IwAR24k8lpCp-b-mv5Wo4FvFI2x8m6Gm_aeCOPj0Pk1Yhy0UZSs5ZrHcNQFPE

“Rootless and homeless: Tragedy of Northern IDPs” Sunday Observer

This October marks the 29th anniversary of the exodus of Northern Muslims forcibly driven from their traditional homeland by the LTTE.

via: http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2019/10/27/news-features/rootless-and-homeless-tragedy-northern-idps?fbclid=IwAR0MgUlfyoXDPkqP4CVfeLqVYHkyTx1H392neqFfBT6GsqbQ1l8QTLPx-Gc

“Flights soon from Sri Lanka’s Jaffna to 4 Indian cities but not Chennai. Here’s why” Hindustan Times

Since the end of its three-decade long civil war in 2009 and with the help of India, Sri Lanka has been upgrading the Jaffna peninsula’s Kankesanthurai harbour and the adjacent air field Palali, which played a crucial role for the Sri Lankan air force to air-drop relief supplies during the brutal conflict, when supply lines to Jaffna were often cut off by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

via: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/flights-soon-from-srilanka-s-jaffna-to-4-indian-cities-but-not-chennai-here-s-why/story-Ad5cSDmUzDvnIHVTRvtwrL.html?fbclid=IwAR0hdWvNpBj3x2BoOPV-HtvMuC-T40rO_Yl6tQCBT34SQwN44vPBSv-iXww

“In War’s Aftermath, Tamils Are Haunted By Hope For Relatives’ Return” Amrita Chandradas

In the past 30 years, some 60,000 to 100,000 Sri Lankans have disappeared, Amnesty International reports. Ethnic and religious tensions have always been a part of Sri Lanka’s history, which includes a decades-long war between government security forces and Tamil Tiger separatists that ended in 2009.

Photographer Amrita Chandradas, an Indian Tamil who was born and raised in Singapore, traveled to Jaffna, Sri Lanka, and nearby Neduntheevu island (also called Delft Island) to document disappearances among Sri Lankan Tamils.

via: https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2019/06/02/651883770/in-wars-aftermath-tamils-are-haunted-by-hope-for-relatives-return?fbclid=IwAR0l3HmdxNgxSRDtYoj2YyJBGfaD1RIy6vD-GT1bPW8ecGshGUqh5Ua5X7E&t=1572904622930

“Sri Lanka: awaiting justice for a decade” The Hindu

Given a choice between living in a camp for displaced persons and in a home of his own, Dinesh Kumar would have chosen the latter any day. But nothing prepared him for the daily battle at his new house.

“I go to the sea to fish, but the catch has fallen drastically in the years we were displaced. I do some home gardening with my wife, we barely manage,” said the 30-year-old, standing in front of his small, Army-built house in Tellippalai, in Jaffna peninsula. Authorities have named the colony ‘Nallinakkapuram’ (colony of reconciliation). But for residents here, concerns over finding livelihood and drinking water have trumped the relief of being back on their land.

via: https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/sri-lanka-awaiting-justice-for-a-decade/article27165855.ece?fbclid=IwAR1fWR9I23DqWcJtvJz3-W8hm3w1oAT6ugs6zTR5S-4EY4P4hhBxJYJDQPQ

“Ten years after war ended, Sri Lankan Tamils may never get back land” Reuters

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Sri Lankan government forces may never return swathes of land taken from ethnic Tamils during a decades-long civil war, land and human rights experts said on Friday, further impoverishing tens of thousands uprooted in the bloody conflict.

link: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-landrights/ten-years-after-war-ended-sri-lankan-tamils-may-never-get-back-land-idUSKCN1SN0JC?fbclid=IwAR0YrdH3loZW4xAicp4zIQYlzyKhwgA3yY4_B60Fj0SFYea0xwdyQTAcf9Q

Online Museum of Memory and Coexistence

The International Centre for Ethnic Studies is pleased to launch its online Museum of Memory and Coexistence.  The museum will seek to celebrate diversity, coexistence, resilience and solidarity, while archiving social exclusion, loss, and personal trauma. 

​​It​ is part of a larger ICES initiative to explore the use of arts, and physical and digital spaces, to facilitate social healing, archive narratives of the past, and build creative spaces for talking about a shared future and non-recurrence.