May 29, 2021 · 3:44 pm

Under Fire: Sri Lanka’s Colonization Programmes and Economic Policies 1920s-to-2020

Michael Roberts

An Excursion in Mid-May 2021

In mid-May I received a short note from a Sri Lankan [SR] in Colombo which contained potentially severe criticisms of the colonisation programmes initiated by the colonial and post-colonial government in the course of the 20th century. Insofar as this comment arose from his reading of my interview with the British CCS man Dyson (within the Roberts Oral History Project[1] of the 1960s), it embraced events and processes that commenced in the 1920s and centred on the programmes fostered by DS Senanayake.  His thoughts on the agricultural policies were far-reaching, albeit brief.

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May 29, 2021 · 3:04 pm

Covid: Ominous Tentacles in All South Asian Lands

Smriti Mallapaty, 14 May 2021 in an Article ….. where the opening lines run thus: “From Sri Lanka to Nepal, scientists with limited resources are working feverishly to discover which variants are driving outbreaks.

https://jwp-nindia.public.springernature.app/en/nindia/figures/1665 Health workers administer SARS-CoV-2 tests at a railway station in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo. …. © Xinhua/eyevine

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May 25, 2021 · 2:51 pm

Vesak: The Emergence of Buddhism in the Indian Subcontinent

 Uditha Devapriya … an original essay with the title ppreferred by Uditha being “Some Reflections on Vesak”

 By the 6th century BC, the centre of Indian civilisation had shifted to the Ganges Valley. Social and economic conditions made possible the rise of several religions that posed as alternatives to the rigid orthodoxy of Brahmanism. By the end of the 5th century BC, the number of these sects had come down, and among those that survived were Jainism and Buddhism.

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May 24, 2021 · 11:33 am

The Power of Poetry: Learning from Ashley Halpé

Aparna Halpé, in The Island, 23 May 2021, where the title reads  “Learning from My Father, Five Years After his Passing”

I was mingling with the audience at a poetry reading in Toronto, where I had been reading some of my new poems, when I was approached by an audience member. He asked me a question that I’ve encountered before in some form or another throughout my entire artistic and professional career… “Excuse me, are you by any chance related to Professor Ashley Halpé?” When I answered that I was his youngest daughter, the gentleman proceeded to tell me this story.

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May 23, 2021 · 3:41 pm

Deadly Covid Abyss looms in Si Lanka: Two Grounded Essays by Peiris versus Peiris

The recent article presented by medical specialists Malik Peiris and Kamini Mendis  has led to informed ethnographic set of comments by Gerald Peiris of Kandy**.…a nd drawn a Response from Dr Malik Peiris that is exrtemely disconcerting. The situation in Sri Lanka is DIRE …  and going to plunge to further depths.

 

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May 23, 2021 · 12:50 pm

Percy Colin-Thomé and the Composition of the Book People Inbetween

Michael Roberts

Percy Colin-Thomé was born in Galle and his initial learning roots were at Richmond College. His genealogical roots derived from the Swiss personnel of the de Meuron Regiment in the service of the VOC in the 1790s who stayed on in Sri Lanka in British times when the colonial lands on the coast of Ceilao were taken over by the expanding imperial power known as Britain. These lineages became one strand in the mixed/race “Burgher” ethnic group in the island once the whole arena had been unified as colony by Britain between 1815 and 1818. Largely urban in background and increasingly English-speaking at home, these Burgher people became an influential segment of the local “middle-class” fulfilling intermediary roles in the British colonial service.[1]

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May 22, 2021 · 3:00 am

Political Crisis and Ethnic Conflicts in Sri Lanka: A Rejoinder to Michael Roberts

K. M. de Silva, being an article published in the Ethnic Studies  Report, Vol. 6/1, January 1988 …. a riposte to a Review of his book Managing Ethnic Tensions in Multi-Ethnic Societies: Sri Lanka, 1880-1985, (1985)

                                          I 

I have long believed that the author of a book under review should not bother to write replies to reviewers however perverse he believes the latter to be. After all he has had his say at greater length than the reviewer. My present departure from this practice, and the response I write to Michael Roberts’s review of my book Managing Ethnic Tensions in Multi-Ethnic Societies: Sri Lanka 1880-1985 stems from two considerations. Invited to write a short review (1,500 words or so) in the style of the present journal Michael Roberts writes a review essay of 20,000 words. It has been reduced to about 2/3rds its length for our journal but it is still the longest review we have published. Secondly, he proceeds to write two reviews of the same book, one for this journal, and one for another [see p. 61 above, Michael Roberts 1987 (a)]

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May 21, 2021 · 10:22 am

Red Alert! Commentary on the Failures of GoSL pinpointed by Peiris and Malik

A Cricketing Friend with Senior Mercantile Firm Experience, 21 May 2021

If the powers that be sought the advice of these professionals the country would not be in the situation we are in. The army cannot decide what is best on medical matters…… https://thuppahis.com/2021/05/21/for-lanka-a-science-based-strategy-to-control-the-present-covid-situation/

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May 21, 2021 · 1:31 am

For Lanka: A Science-based Strategy to Control the Present COVID-Situation

 Drs. Malik Peiris & Kamini Mendis

I.    The current covid-19 situation in the country

 There is a high intensity of transmission of covid-19 in the country just now. Although it became apparent with cases increasing in the last week of April, the increase in transmission began about 4 weeks before that. The incubation period of the virus (3-14 days) together with testing/reporting delays mean that the cases detected and reported now were the result of transmission that took place 1-2 weeks ago. Since deaths follow with a lag period of a further two weeks, the deaths occurring now were the result or transmission that took place one month ago.

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May 20, 2021 · 3:22 pm

The Burgher Elite and the British Raj

Michael Roberts 

   George F Nell, Louis Nell, C. A. Lorenz,  James Alwis and Charles Ferdinands moving anti-clockwise

Preamble:[1] In locating the Burghers in ‘social space’ the book People Inbetween deploys statistical detail, text and quotation to place them within the Ceylonese middle class of British Ceylon.[2] The socio-political clout which accrued to the Burgher segment of the middle class is further illustrated by indicating the complex ways in which they fulfilled intermediary roles between the mass of the people and the British rulers and/or between powerful segments of the majority community, the Sinhalese. The extract printed below is a section of Chapter 6 [in People Inbetween] devoted to this purpose and is reproduced without citations.

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