Going Beyond the Politics of Devolution: Back to the Future
As the dust settles on victory parades and politician speeches, a sense of déjà vu is difficult to shake. The new May Heroes’ Day speeches bear uncanny resemblance to what used to…
Year: 2010
Beyond the war psyche in Sri Lanka
Dust is finally settling on the euphoria generated by last year’s military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Old concerns naturally give way to the new and a year…
Post-War Sri Lanka: Way Forward or More of the Same?
Without peace, there is no development; without development there is no peace, President Rajapaksa has said. Yet, for the overwhelming majority of the population he presides over, life is quite harsh under…
Re-imagining Sri Lanka post-war
About a month or so after the end of the war in Sri Lanka, R Swaminathan, former Special Secretary of the Government of India commented that there should be no rigidity in…
Opportunities and challenges facing post-war Sri Lanka
The recent Parliamentary Election has resulted in the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance, obtaining a resounding victory at the general election. However, the number of seats won has fallen just short of a…
GETTING SRI LANKA’S ECONOMY BACK ON TRACK
On the first anniversary of the end of the war, with the presidential and parliamentary elections behind us, now is the time to start thinking seriously about addressing some of the problems…
Tamil Question and the Global Crisis of Capitalism
One whole year has elapsed since Sri Lanka’s military victory over the Tamil Tiger forces that were fighting for a separate state. Many had high hopes that the triumphant Mahinda-regime would now…
Living with the Other in post-war Sri Lanka
I often have to remind myself that I live with a Tamil. My housemate, Vanessa is a Tamil, married to a Sinhalese and I have been living with her and her husband…
Women are not willing to go back to pre-war status quo
By Kumi Samuel and Chulani Kodikara War is a gendered process. Post war is no different.  It may be a cliché to say that in Sri Lanka as elsewhere in the world,…
Negotiables
I wish to crack a bottle of arrack and kick my legs out on the verandah before the sea at twilight, this mix of liquor, even kisses, pleasure under whirring fans, brought…
CHALLENGES TODAY: WEEVILS IN THE MIND
Daya Somasundaram was in Jaffna town in late 1995 when the Sri Lankan army advanced south and eastwards from Palaly. As the LTTE decided upon a strategic withdrawal, they insisted that all…
What is there to celebrate? Rumblings of a Jaffna Tamil
The question that I have been repeatedly asked by people outside Jaffna is whether we Tamils are not happy that the war is over. An immediate follow up question is whether we…
Post War Sri Lanka: Thoughts of University Students
Last May Sri Lanka ended its long drawn war, fought for over three decades with the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE). This month Sri Lanka is commemorating the first year after…
Articulating the Concerns of Ethnic Minorities in Relation to Constitutional Proposals
It may be useful to begin by going back over 80 years to the time when , in the mid – nineteen twenties, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, newly returned from Oxford University, vigorously promoted…
The end of war and Sri Lanka’s future: Videos from Vikalpa in Sinhala and English
Vikalpa, the sister site of with citizen journalism in Sinhala, produced this mini-documentary on Jaffna a year after the war ended. Vikalpa also produced a series of interviews in Tamil, Sinhala and…
