Roots of the crisis
Not the debt alone. Victor Ivan digs for the roots of the crisis in the subsidies handed out for votes, the language policy, the identity-card system and the corruption that has spread through every institution.
Dilemmas of Sri Lanka
Whatever his history, Gotabaya Rajapaksa now governs those who voted against him too. Victor Ivan turns from the presidency to stray dogs, crop-raiding wildlife, milk and meat — and argues for an agrarian revolution.
Securing a People’s Constitution
With a People’s Constitution now in several manifestos, Victor Ivan sets out what the model actually requires: a constitutional assembly drawn from every sector of society, and an honest review of what went wrong before.
Puzzles of Sri Lanka
The citizenship case is dismissed and the celebrations begin. Victor Ivan sets the moment against the longer puzzle of a country that has never managed to build a nation out of its own people.
Ours is a failed state
Victor Ivan measures the failure of the state by what has happened to rural life — the collapse of peasant agriculture, the plunder of land, and a school system that sorts children by their parents’ means.
The State and the bulldozer
A state that knows only how to bulldoze: Victor Ivan runs the argument through garbage, schools, paddy land, caste and fake passports, and concludes that structural reform must come before any election.
What is happening?
The patient needs surgery and the doctors are discussing the election. Victor Ivan sets out what the next president will and will not be able to do, and why the contest itself is in crisis.
Honesty and sincerity
Falsehood has become an operating principle, Victor Ivan writes — in what is sold as kithul treacle, in what tourists are offered, in what schools certify, and in what professionals are licensed to do without ever being re-examined.
Kitchen and the State
Victor Ivan argues that what Sri Lankans eat and how they cook it is a political question — bound up with rural poverty, wasted harvests, crop damage by wild animals, and prohibitions inherited from Anagarika Dharmapala.
Putrefaction and end
With the presidential election set for December, Victor Ivan argues that every major leader has an interest in keeping the country unstable until polling day — and that none of them will touch the reforms that matter.