අවිචාරය, උද්ධච්චකම හා අශීලාචාරත්වය
Ivan argues that by ignoring the judgments of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal in the impeachment of the Chief Justice, the government has done what no previous government dared, destroying both the courts’ legitimacy and its own. He traces the Supreme Court’s power to interpret the constitution and the ancient reach of the writ jurisdiction, recalls the Bracegirdle case under colonial rule and Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s certiorari against J.R. Jayewardene’s commission, and warns, with Musharraf’s Pakistan as the precedent, that two rival Chief Justices could now follow.
තේ කර්මාන්තය නගා සිටුවීම
Tea, the editorial recalls, transformed Sri Lanka: it brought South Indian labour, roads and railways, and created the fortunes of low-country families such as Jeronis de Soysa, whose descendants’ wealth funded schools and hospitals. Nationalisation under Sirimavo Bandaranaike failed, and land-reform holdings became a pool for politicians’ land grabs, while privatisation sold estates cheaply. Smallholders from the south saved the industry, with double the yields of large estates. Since plantation workers’ children are leaving, the editorial proposes making workers smallholders on inalienable land, with companies limited to processing and marketing, and urges value-added exports on the Dilmah model and strict laws against blending inferior tea, as India and China turn to domestic consumption.
සටන් කිරීම හා අවසාන සටන
Ivan sets out the principles that let him win most of his battles: a just cause, a clear philosophy and plan, careful assessment and preparation, and knowing when not to fight, as Gandhi refused to hamper the Allies in wartime. He recalls how J.R. Jayewardene ordered him to stop his ‘Kalinga’ column during the second JVP insurrection and how a calm reply won the President’s respect; how he refused JVP requests for help and armed protection, backed the state against the rebels though opposed to the UNP, and saw every such crisis as no time for regime change. He contrasts Gandhi’s respect for his opponents with the hatred driving Sri Lankan struggles, then tells how he defeated the parliamentary privileges committee’s power to punish journalists by refusing its summons, enlisting Mrs Bandaranaike and international pressure, until the committee adjourned indefinitely.
25 වැනි සංවත්සරය
Ahead of Ravaya’s 25th anniversary, Ivan answers Sarvodaya leader A.T. Ariyaratne, who told Mawbima that he had spent millions on Ravaya, that the name was his idea and that Ivan later attacked him in the paper. Ivan sets out the founding story: the plan and the name were his, Sarvodaya’s Vishvalekha press printed the magazine at twice market rates and handled all the money, and so profited from Ravaya, not the other way round. He describes his differences with Ariyaratne’s outward Gandhianism, while crediting his service to rural youth, and explains the break: Ariyaratne switched from Premadasa to backing the JVP insurrection and Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1988, then tried to placate the victorious Premadasa by stopping Ravaya’s printing. Ivan closes with the paper’s 25-year ‘journey against the current’ and plans for the anniversary, including a documentary.
රාජපක්ෂ පාලනයේ හත් අවුරුද්ද
Mahinda Rajapaksa can be counted the most argued-about and the most powerful head of state Sri Lanka has produced since independence; before him that place belonged to J.R. Jayewardene. Five sections follow: social and family background, power and resolve, the lust for power, importance and power, and where it went wrong.
විරුද්ධ පක්ෂ හා ආණ්ඩු පක්ෂ දේශපාලනයේ ශ්රාස්ත්රීය දුගීභාවය
Ivan opens with a telephone conversation with an educated man of some standing inside the UNP who is himself a subject of argument there, and the question he put to him. What follows is an account of the intellectual poverty on both sides, of the deceiving of party members, of family politics, and of the limits of the forward vision on offer.
යක්ෂයා පලවා හැරීම
For a decade there have been attempts inside the UNP to remove Ranil Wickremesinghe and change the leadership, and he has defeated every one of them and kept his place. The leader of the recent revolt was Sajith Premadasa, and though the popular belief was that he would win, Ranil won again — and Sajith does not appear to have finished his fight.
නිදහසේ වාන් දොර ඇරීම
A fundamental change in the political system is essential to any good forward movement for the society and the country — and without overcoming the challenge Prabhakaran’s movement posed to the state, there was no possibility of making one. That challenge was itself something this corrupt political system enlarged: there was a problem before it, and this system turned it into a tangle that could not easily be settled.
නව ආණ්ඩුක්රම ව්යවස්ථාවක් ඇතිකර ගැනීම
Constitutional reform deserves more of the public’s attention than the parliamentary election itself. The government asks for a two-thirds majority to change the system, but Ivan argues it does not need one: a constitution is a social contract, and no single party represents the whole of a society made up of the SLFP, the UNP, the JVP, the Tamil National Alliance, the Hela Urumaya and much else. Sri Lanka’s record here is poor — three constitutions since independence and now a fourth, where countries write them to last centuries. America has the world’s shortest and has not tired of it in two hundred years; India has the longest and credits it with meeting each challenge. Bandaranaike in 1970 and Jayewardene in 1977 both used their majorities to exclude the opposition; Nehru, with a comparable majority, spent three and a half years including everyone. Rajapaksa should not repeat their mistake.
ජනාධිපති මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂගේ අනාගතය
Winning the election will not save a president who cannot look back honestly at his own record, Ivan argues. He sets the strengths against the limits — the war won, the family’s grip, the corruption and nepotism, the scale of the cabinet — and says the victory was an opening to build a political system worth the name, an opening the president has so far declined.