JOURNALIST. EDITOR. AUTHOR
VICTOR
IVAN
වික්ටර් අයිවන්
A youth rebel in the 1971 insurrection who later embraced Gandhian non-violence, he emerged as the nation’s most resolute investigative editor. For over three decades, his newspaper Ravaya challenged state corruption and served as a vital platform for the persecuted.
1971 කැරැල්ලේ තරුණ කැරලිකරුවෙකු වී, පසුව ගාන්ධිවාදී අවිහිංසාව වැළඳගත් ඔහු, ජාතියේ අභීතම සහ නොසැලෙන ගවේෂණාත්මක කතුවරයා ලෙස ඉස්මතු විය. දශක තුනකට අධික කාලයක් පුරා, ඔහුගේ ‘රාවය’ පුවත්පත රාජ්‍ය දූෂණයට අභියෝග කළ අතර, පීඩිතයන්ගේ හඬ නියෝජනය කරන ප්‍රබල වේදිකාවක් ලෙස ද ක්‍රියා කළේය.
- 5,000+ Articles
- 30+ Books
- 25 Years of Ravaya
- 2004 UN Human Rights Committee ruling
Biography
Biography · From his prison diary
10 July
1971
Saturday · aged 22
Wijerama Mawatha
ENT clinic
Kuruduwatta
IP ජෙගනාදන් විසින් මගේ කන් දෙක වසා දිගින් දිගට පහරදීම නිසා කණ කුණුවී තිබුනා.
“My ear had gone septic because IP Jeganadan had covered both my ears and struck them again and again.”
Arrested on 4 April 1971, he kept a diary of the sixteen weeks that followed. It is the earliest document in the archive, and the only one in which he is the subject rather than the reporter.
Books & Publications · Selected works
Four decades
in print
පොත් රාක්කය
More than thirty books, from his 1979 account of the 1971 insurrection to a 2022 call for a people’s constitution. These are some of his best known.
1979 දී පළ වූ ‘71 කැරැල්ල’ සිට 2022 දක්වා වික්ටර් අයිවන් පොත් තිහකට අධික සංඛ්‍යාවක් රචනා කළේය. මෙහි දැක්වෙන්නේ ඒ අතරින් වඩාත් ප්‍රකට කෘති කිහිපයකි.
Twenty-five years
under one editor
He founded Ravaya as a monthly magazine, turned it into a weekly newspaper, and edited it until June 2012. It exposed corruption at the top of the state, and was taken to court for it, again and again.
1986
A monthly magazine
1990
A weekly newspaper
2012
Steps down after 25 years
Origins · In Ravaya’s own words
Families of the missing, from the terror years of the late 1980s.
රාවය ඉපදුණේ 1986 ඔක්තෝබර්වලදීය. එය විධායක ජනාධිපති ක්‍රමය තුළ ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදී නිදහස වැළලී තිබූ බිහිසුණු යුගයක් විය.
“Ravaya was born in October 1986. It was a fearsome age, when democratic freedom lay buried under the executive presidency.”
From Ravaya’s history of its first twenty-five years.
President J.R. Jayewardene
Summoned by the President
Angered by Ravaya’s criticism, Jayewardene called the editor in: if Ravaya wanted to keep publishing, the political column he wrote as “Kalinga” had to stop.
The editor replied that Ravaya’s aim was to bring a debate being fought with guns into a civilised one. Kalinga missed a single issue, then came back.
The JVP’s second insurrection · 1989
Vote, despite the death threats
ජේවීපීයේ දෙවැනි කැරැල්ල
Both the JVP and the forces were attacking journalists. Ravaya named the wrongs of both sides.
When the JVP banned the 1989 presidential election, Ravaya told its readers to go and vote, ignoring the JVP’s death threats.
The Premadasa years
Before the privileges committee
ජනමාධ්‍ය නිහඬ කළ පාර්ලිමේන්තු වරප්‍රසාද නීතිය
Parliament could punish journalists, even jail them. Five complaints were lined up against Ravaya; the first came from K.N. Choksy, President Premadasa’s legal adviser.
The editor challenged the committee’s power to punish without any legal procedure. The hearing was put off indefinitely, and such cases later went to the Supreme Court instead.
From the paper’s own account of its first twenty-five years.
Archive · 1979–2022
From the
archive
ලේඛනාගාරය
Four decades of columns and editorials from Ravaya, the Daily FT, The Sunday Times and other papers, in Sinhala and English. New articles are added as the scanning continues.
රාවය, ඩේලි එෆ්ටී සහ සන්ඩේ ටයිම්ස් ඇතුළු පුවත්පත්වල දශක හතරක් පුරා පළ වූ ඔහුගේ ලිපි, සිංහලෙන් හා ඉංග්‍රීසියෙන්. ලිපි ස්කෑන් කිරීම දිගටම සිදු වන බැවින් නව ලිපි නිතර එක් කෙරේ.