What went wrong with Sri Lanka?
Seventy-one years after independence, countries that were behind Sri Lanka have overtaken it. Victor Ivan looks for the answer in the colonial inheritance, the uses made of ancient history, and the poverty of the country’s intellectual life.
Understanding Sri Lanka through education and agriculture
Rote learning from Grade 1 to Advanced Level; paddy land worked at a loss; wild animals destroying two-fifths of the crop. Victor Ivan uses education and agriculture to show how far the country’s thinking has fallen behind.
Making a People’s Constitution for Sri Lanka
Having argued that the Constitution has lost its spirit, Victor Ivan sets out what a replacement should do: build the nation, empower the people directly, and put constitution-making beyond the reach of the Executive alone.
The Second Freedom Struggle (Part II)
Victor Ivan returns to 1947-48 to show how the Soulbury Constitution was made and how quickly it was disfigured — the disenfranchisement of the plantation Tamils, the Sinhala Only Act, and the habit of amending away inconvenient safeguards.
Overcoming the crisis: The second freedom struggle
If the collapse of the state cannot now be avoided, what should replace it? Victor Ivan calls for a ‘second freedom struggle’ led by public organisations rather than political parties, aimed at a new constitution.
Anarchy and the collapse of the State
The Executive and the Legislature have disintegrated; the Judiciary may yet find its orders ignored. Victor Ivan reads the state as a machine whose faults were visible, and whose remaining life could have been predicted, long ago.
Understanding the root cause of the crisis
The collapse Victor Ivan sees around him did not begin in October 2018. He traces it to the failure, from independence onward, to build a single nation out of Sri Lanka’s ethnic, caste and religious divisions.
The present crisis is likely to end up in a serious disaster
Sirisena has sacked one Prime Minister, sworn in another and moved to dissolve Parliament using powers the 19th Amendment took away from him. Victor Ivan argues the courts alone cannot arrest what follows.
අශීලාචාර තත්ත්වය පවත්වාගෙන යමුද? ශීලාචාර රටක් ඇතිකර ගමුද?
Ivan frames the January 2015 election as a choice about the country’s future. After defeating a rebellion a state must heal, not keep ruling by fear; yet after Prabhakaran’s defeat the Rajapaksa government had no vision for repairing the damage to people, infrastructure, society and institutions, and turned the victory to its own ends, using the forces for power. He asks why the rebellions arose and argues that re-electing Mahinda Rajapaksa would entrench an uncivilised state.
මේ මොහොතේ කළහැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Contrasting the prosecution of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa with the removal of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, Ivan compares India, whose leaders built a nation and a democracy, with Sri Lanka, where independence brought ethnic, religious and caste conflict. With a presidential election near, he weighs the idea of a common candidate against Ranil Wickremesinghe’s own bid and his promise to abolish the presidency, and floats the idea of a third social movement for system change, inviting readers to write to a dedicated email address.