Category Archives: social justice

September 3, 2023 · 8:22 pm

The Growth of Police Subservience to Political Overlords in Sri Lanka, 1948-2023

Merril Gunaratne, a Retd Senior DIG, in The Island, 3 September 2023, where the title runs thus: “Police subservience made political interference possible”  …. while highlighting has been imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

This writing was inspired by the topical essay of Kingsley Wickramasuriya, retired Senior DIG, which dealt with the impact of politics on the police, and the pithy observation made by Rajan Phillips in his column in the Sunday Island of August 20 where he has, whilst discussing dangers that may affect provincial policing under the 13th Amendment, stated “Nothing can be done provincially unless everything is reformed nationally”.

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September 3, 2023 · 7:17 pm

Caste Discrimination among Indians in USA to be Prohibited

A REUTER’s News Item, 31 August 2023, entitled “California’s anti-caste discrimination bill passes state Assembly”

SB 403, which would make California the first state to ban caste discrimination, has progressed further. California moved closer to becoming the first state to ban caste discrimination after a bill to outlaw the practice passed the California Assembly late on Monday.
U.S. discrimination laws ban ancestry discrimination but do not explicitly ban casteism. California’s legislation targets the caste system in South Asian immigrant communities by adding caste to the list of categories protected under the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

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August 13, 2023 · 2:11 pm

“Sinhabahu” in Adelaide for Roshan Mahanama Trust

A NOTICE ciruclated by ASLA and Nayan Perera in Adelaide, August 2023

Dear Friends,

Adelaide Lakhanda with the Nalanda Old Boys Association of South Australia & Sri Lanka Cricket South Australia is excited to invite you to a meaningful event with an entertaining and purposeful evening. On 26th August, at the Regal Theatre Kensington, we will be screening the movie “Sinhabahu” for a noble cause.

 

 

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August 6, 2023 · 12:15 am

In Appreciation of Jayantha Dhanapala

Prasad Kariyawasam: an article entitled “Remembering Jayantha Dhanapala (1938-2023)” …….. presented in a booklet entitled  “Hanthana Night” produced by University of Peradeniya Western Australia Chapter, 2023, pp. 50-52.

“For those who had the good fortune of knowing and working with him, Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapla, was the quintessential diplomat, trustworthy colleague, all rounder par excellence and most importantly, a humanitarian to the core. His early life was shaped by two great educational institutions of international repute during his time – Trinity College Kandy and the University of Peradeniya.

Ambassador Dhanapala at the 40 nation Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in 1984 … with Prasad Kariyawasam standing behind him

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July 9, 2023 · 8:30 pm

Travails of a Rookie District Officer in Polonnaruwa, 1957-58

Sugath Kulatunga

Fresh from the University of Peradeniya, after a stint of teaching at St. Anthony’s College Kandy, I was selected as an Administrative Officer in the Department of Agriculture in November 1957 with 18 others in a new cadre of administrative officers established in the Department. This cadre was the brainchild of the then Minister of Agriculture Philip Gunawardhane and was operationalized by the then Deputy Director Administration Sam Silva, who Philip called a ‘” human dynamo”. (Sam was also the prime mover in the establishment of the CWE and the Petroleum Corporation).

Sugath 

Philip Gunawardena

CP De Silva

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July 2, 2023 · 8:22 pm

Philip Gunawardena, The “Lion of Boralugoda

Sugeeswara Senadhira, in Daily News, 26 March 2021, where the title reads “The Relevance of Philip Gunawardena’s social nationalism”

Philip Gunawardena was a born leader who instinctively understood the hopes and aspirations of the people, a man close to the heartbeat of the nation. Today ( 26) is the 49th death anniversary of Philip Gunawardena, who earned the sobriquet ‘Lion of Boralugoda’.

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June 19, 2023 · 2:44 am

The Travails of the Villagers of Musali on Film

Yomal Senerath-Yapa, in Sunday Times 18 June 2023, with this title “A humane look at the villagers of Palaikuli”

Sumathy Sivamohan’s maiden documentary film ‘Amid the Villus’ tells the story of a pastoral people for whom the land was simply home. This film, Sumathy Sivamohan’s latest documentary –  also her first (having so far done only feature films) — takes you to Palaikuli, the dry scrubland village in Musali South where for ages a pastoral people have tended to cattle and goats.

It is a poetic, humane, behind-the-headlines look at the ‘Musali land-grab’ where she documents the story of the community that was vilified in the news for infringing on the vintage ‘land of the leopard’ at Wilpattu.

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June 16, 2023 · 1:27 am

Revisiting Tarzie VittachI’s EMERGENCY ’58

Michael Roberts

In re-visiting an assortment of historical episodes in Sri Lanka’s past in unsytematic fashion I have been led to Tarzie Vittachi’s Emergençy ’58 (published in 1958) by Sugath Kulatunga’s detailed and invaluable recounting of his experiences as a government official in Polonnaruwa in the 1950s (an item still being processed).

While Vittachi was an experienced journalist, we cannot take every ‘fact’ that he presents as indubitable. However, this pointer towards his slim volume should, hopefully, bring new generations of Sri Lankans and outside observers into reflections on the consequences of the political currents unleashed in the general election in 1956 — notably the upsurge of the underprivileged classes and the demand for Sinhala Only.

This focus, however, should not promote currents of denunciation which throw the baby out with the bathwater. The inequalities of the pre-existing dispensation must be clinically drawn out as well.

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June 12, 2023 · 11:43 am

A Conservative Voice against Today’s Aboriginal ‘Voice’ ”

 Dr David Barton, in THE QUADRANT,  December 2022, with this title “Australia’s Aboriginal Industry: Always Was, Always Will Be About Power”

 

In 1983, as a naïve youth worker and concerned by what I had been reading since the early 1970s about what was happening with Aborigines in Alice Springs, I moved there to see what I could do to help. All told, I spent six years in Central Australia, leaving both depressed and convinced that the situation could never be fixed.

Unfortunately, much of what passes for Aboriginal ‘culture’ today is an invention of the last 50 years.

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June 5, 2023 · 2:49 pm

A Mind For One and All: Jayantha Dhanapala

Tissa Jayatilaka, in The Island, 4 June 2023,  … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

The splendid career and the many glittering prizes won by Jayantha Dhanapala is common knowledge and does not require reiteration here. Rather I wish to focus on the man himself in this tribute to an exceptional person whom I had the privilege of getting to know personally at the tail end of the 1980s – I had of course heard of Jayantha and his many accomplishments long before our first meeting. Having read a newspaper review of North-South Perspectives, an international affairs journal that I edited, which focused on the promotion of greater understanding between the ‘developed’ and the ‘developing’ world, Jayantha telephoned me to ask if we could meet. I readily agreed and thus began a friendship that lasted until his death a few days ago.

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