June 15, 2014 · 5:21 am

Running the Gauntlet in Academia: The Case of “Selfless Sacrifice” — A Rejected Article

Michael Roberts

20 24 LTTE tuyilam illam at Vadamaratchchi, November 2004 —Pic by Michael Roberts …. http://thuppahis.com/2010/01/03/symbolic-postscript-a-terrible-violence/

Preamble I: The wide-open facilities of the cyber world have not only promoted citizen journalism, but also encouraged personnel outside academia to pen articles on complex topics. Needless to say, these vary greatly in quality. That is true within academia as well: journals vary in their depth and quality … and even within reputed journals some weak and/or horrible articles pass the vetting process.

Since visitors to web sites may not be aware of the review process within academic journals, let me clarify matters from my own experiences as an author as well as my editorial roles at various moments for Modern Ceylon Studies (1970s at Peradeniya University) and Social Analysis (1979-1990s at Adelaide University). Continue reading →

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June 13, 2014 · 3:26 pm

From Godse and Gandhi to the Selfless Sacrifice of Tamil Tigers

Michael Roberts **

“I must reduce myself to zero” (Mahatma Gandhi)

Mahatma Gandhi 11 Gandhi nathuram-godse-11Godse  13c--Prabha with pistol-2Pirapaharan

I am indebted to Dennis Hudson for the insights via Gandhi which inspire this article: “Gandhi was a martyr to satya, which is ‘truth’ or ‘true being,’ or ‘being true,’ …. Truth’s power radiates through the person who participates in it by eliminating the personal ego-centered passion that distorts it. Truth is God whom Gandhi called Ram. To serve Ram as a conduit for his gracious power in the middle of India’s violent political life, Gandhi had tried for years to reduce himself to “zero” [as he himself expressed matters]” (Hudson 2002: 132).

GandhiThis transcendental orientation guided many of the Mahatma’s interventions in the tumultuous era of Indian nationalist politics. During the course of one such intervention, as he walked to an evening prayer meeting at a friend’s house in New Delhi on 30 January 1948, his life in this world was viciously terminated by an assassin named Nathuram Godse.[1] Paradoxically, both Godse and Gandhi were inspired by the Bhagavad Gīta (Jaffrelot 2003). The Gīta was a foundational inspiration for a long line of nationalist or fundamentalist thinking beginning with Tilak and extending into the Hindu fundamentalist stream of thinking associated with Savarkar who “invok[ed] the motif of Hindu religious sacrifice.” Already a member of the Hindu Maha Sabha, when Savarkar founded an offshoot called the Hindu Rashtra Dal in 1942, Godse became the editor-in-chief of its newspaper (Jaffrelot 2003:300-11, quotation from p. 304).[2] Continue reading →

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June 13, 2014 · 10:36 am

An Idyllic “Homestay” in Sri Lanka … with Suzy and Bhatiya Ratwatte

Mark Hodson, in The Daily ,News, 13 June 2014, where the original title reads “Sri Lanka: Lush jungle, paddy fields and gastronomical delights”

 

“Sorry about the weather, we were hoping for rain,” said Suzy Ratwatte as she looked out from the verandah across her dusty parched lawn. I wiped the sweat from my forehead. Suzy was pouring tea into china cups, served with custard creams. “Even we are feeling the heat, it’s impossible,” she said. Suzy and her husband Bhathiya run a homestay in a small village on the outskirts of Kandy. Their large colonial bungalow, which has been in the family for four generations, is tastefully decorated with antique wooden furniture and knick-knacks collected over the years.

AA lush jungle 22Idyllic rural setting: It was towards the end of the tourist season and I was the only guest. “When the children grew up and left home, we thought why not have people to stay,” said Suzy. “We have four guest rooms, we both like to meet people and I love to cook.” That was two years ago and reviews from past guests have been so positive that the couple have added three further rooms in the grounds. Continue reading →

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June 12, 2014 · 3:13 pm

How tall is the new UN High Commisssioner? Mountainous Issues confront Zeid Ra’ad Zeid

Suzanne Nossel, courtesy of Foreign Policy Journal, 9 June 2014 …

Prince Zeid Ra'ad ZeidJordanian Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, the U.N.’s newly appointed incoming High Commissioner for Human Rights has his work cut out for him. With a little panache and a low profile, Zeid’s predecessor, outgoing High Commissioner Navi Pillay has, partly by process of elimination, emerged as the most powerful single individual voice for human rights worldwide. Pillay has made headlines of late pronouncing that President Bashar al-Assad’s culpability for atrocities far exceeds that of the Syrian rebels, fingering Putin for rights abuses in Crimea, labeling South Sudan’s leader a possible war criminal, and calling out the Chinese government for denying the grim history of Tiananmen.  Continue reading →

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June 12, 2014 · 2:56 am

Good strategy, bad tactics: ethical considerations in “Rules of Engagement” for counter insurgency warfare

Stephen Coleman**…. an essay written in 2009 and available at http://isme.tamu.edu/ISME09/Coleman09.html

In recent times, in many countries around the globe, military forces have had to come to grips with the difficulties of waging a counter-insurgency war; battling an elusive enemy in a task made all the more difficult by the fact that these insurgent forces commonly utilise tactics that appear (at the very least) to violate all the accepted rules of warfare. Given how common such a situation is in the world today, it seems to me that it is extremely important for military and political leaders to really understand what it is that they are doing when they engage in counter-insurgency warfare, and in particular for such leaders to understand what would count as winning such a war, and how this might be achieved. My aim in this paper is to explore various aspects of the fighting of both traditional and counter-insurgency wars, in order to better understand the similarities and differences between them, and to draw some conclusions about the sorts of strategies and tactics that ought to be employed by those engaged in counter-insurgency wars if they wish to ultimately achieve victory. In particular I wish to examine how the overall strategy that is being implemented in a particular counter-insurgency war finds its expression in the rules of engagement (ROE) given to the personnel in the front lines of the conflict.

48-Bodies that fight onLTTE memorial for the mavirar who died in the battle for Kilinochchi –Pic in November 2004 with thanks to Ravi Vaitheespara Continue reading →

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June 11, 2014 · 3:49 am

India rejects Cultivated English. Modi’s Gujarati and Hindi swamps the old school tie

Sanjay Subramanian, courtesy of the New York Review of Books, where the title reads “India after English?”

india after english--NYRB A scene at Calcutta in mid-May 2014 —Pic by Piyal Adhikary/epa/Corbis

In the days since the decisive victory of Narendra Modi and his conservative Bharatiya Janata Party in India’s national election, many Indian commentators have perceived a turning point in Indian politics. Modi’s critics sense, in his sweeping mandate, an ominous revival of Hindu nationalism; his supporters maintain that he won because of his robust economic record in Gujarat, where he was Chief Minister from 2001 to 2014. Few on either side, though, dispute that Modi’s political rise signals, in part, a rejection by voters of India’s traditional political elite. Continue reading →

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June 10, 2014 · 2:37 pm

Remembering a Renaissance Man, Ediriweera Sarachchandra

Ranjini Obeyesekere

Born at the cusp of the 20th century, at a moment when the cross influences of colonialism, nationalism, and Buddhist revivalism had a powerful impact on the psyche of Sri Lankan intellectuals, — generative as well as conflictual — the life and work of Ediriweera Sarachchandra, represents a transformation of these forces into works of path breaking scholarship and brilliant creativity. His erudition was legendary, and his influence on generations of students as well as the public has made him a household word in the country.

SARACHCHANDRA 11-ISLAND Pic from Island

I will present a few vignettes to try to capture the intellectual range of his erudition, his sensitivity to the cultural and social demands of his time and his innate creativity that enabled him to fuse the many influences and exposures of his life into magnificent literary and dramatic works.

Born to a Christian mother and a Buddhist father, and named Eustace Reginald de Silva, he transformed himself, his name, and his world, to become Ediriweera Sarachchandra —  perhaps the foremost intellectual, scholar, teacher, and creative artist of 20th century Sri Lanka.  Continue reading →

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June 9, 2014 · 1:05 pm

India and Pakistan today: Walk the Talk with Stephen Philip Cohen

NDTV ….

Published on Aug 31, 2013

Walk The Talk: In this episode, eminent political scientist Stephen Philip Cohen talks about the strategic affairs between India an Pakistan and why Pakistan is such an important location for Washington, both geographically and politically. He also talks about how the Indian economy is better than that of Pakistan’s. Mr Cohen also stresses on the fact that the Indian Army is one of the best in the business.

 

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June 9, 2014 · 11:02 am

Fashioning History in Sri Lanka

 Michael Roberts

Abstract: Two arrival stories in the long span of the island’s history will provide the foundations for reflections on history-making in the modern era. Episode One will pursue my own intellectual trail in the 1980s in fashioning an interpretation of the story of the arrival of the Portuguese and my subsequent confrontations in print with KM de Silva on this issue in the 1990s. Episode Two essays an interpretation of the advent of Vijaya retailed in the Pali & Sinhala chronicles as a genesis story of the same order as the tale of Adam and Eve: contending that it is not a tale with any factual basis, but one that conveys a mythic truth for its authors and ‘faithful’ listeners. It is, thus, a morality-tale about the magical implantation of civilised culture and state-forms within the island. This interpretation, however, has shortcomings and will benefit from the correctives imposed by Godfrey Gunatilleke’s exposition of the multi-faceted symbolism associated with this myth.**

** This essay was composed at some point in the early 2000s and I am not sure if it was printed or presented in the public realm. However, it seems useful to make it more widely available in the cyber-world because it displays reasoned academic debate based on empirical data as well as imaginative extrapolation in ways that should stimulate readers.

Let me stress that these engagements occurred before Kitsiri Malalgoda recently presented an incisive set of criticisms of my interpretation of the kudugal sapākamin lē bona minissu tale of the Portuguese sailors’ first appearance on the shores of the island. Malalgoda’s work of research ranged far and wide over several lands and also involved (involves) creative dissembling and assembling. So readers are encouraged to visit K.Malalgoda, “1505 and all that: varied views on a first encounter,” in Home and Away. Essays in Honour of Sarath Amunugama, Colombo, Siripa Publishers, 2010 –ISBN 978-955-0564-00-2 Continue reading →

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June 9, 2014 · 9:59 am

History-Making in Lanka: Problems

Michael Roberts … re-presentation of an article that appeared initially in http://www.federalidea.com in April 2008 and is presented here with minor refinements.**

Central themes in the understanding of Sri Lanka’s recent as well ancient history have been fashioned by two occupational categories, namely, schoolteachers and politicians. The school teachers of the first 75 years of the twentieth century were mostly well-meaning personnel trained in the British empiricist traditions. Their tendency was to regard history as a collection of undisputed facts that could be juxtaposed along a chronological line. There was limited attention to the interpretive dimensions of the trade and the potential for debates around these interpretations. This heritage has been implanted in recent decades by what masquerades as an educational system (where I suspect that in practice it is a process of rote-learning that is now twisted by pliant teachers in each language stream to suit ethnic claims).

44-a classroom and its teacher a classroom in the 19th century

Continue reading →

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