Anton Balasingham: He left the Buddha and went to Marx

Written after Anton Balasingham’s death, the piece traces how the LTTE’s theorist moved from Buddhism to Marxism and gave the Tamil struggle the goal of a separate state. Ivan recalls a 1995 dinner in Jaffna with Balasingham, suggests he came to doubt the separatist idea late in life, and urges Tamil militants to reconsider it.