By Rohana R. Wasala Gravitas News (wionews, World is One News) web portal reported Tuesday December 21, 2021: Riyadh holds 4-day EDM carnival”. Commenting on the electronic dance music extravaganza, unprecedented in Saudi Arabia,  the young news anchor  said, The defacto leader of the Islamic World, the Guardian of the two holiest sites in Islam, […]

By Rohana R. Wasala (An opinion offered for critical examination) Addressing a gathering of jurists in Sinhala at a function in Colombo, justice minister Ali Sabry said (December 12): To me as minister for justice, and to us all as citizens of this country, people are the most important factor. It is because of them […]

By Rohana R. Wasala The lesson taught by the failure of our parliament to register a prompt united response of unqualified condemnation against the occurrence of the Sialkot savagery committed in the name of religion should never be forgotten by all patriotic Sri Lankans. My hunch is that ordinary Sri Lankans whose hearts bled for […]

By Rohana R. Wasala To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? Hamlet in Shakespeare’s Hamlet The initial two year period of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidential term has been largely […]

By Rohana R. Wasala  (Continuation of ‘Don’t forget people who elected you, Mr President!’/November 2, 2021) My gut feeling is that the Presidential Task Force, if it is what I think it is, i.e., a brilliantly thought out ploy with an ulterior motive, is meant to abort the new constitution making project. It was probably […]

By Rohana R. Wasala  A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the […]

By Rohana R. Wasala (The following is only a layman’s personal opinion for what it is worth. It is hoped that it will be read not as an attack on the intrepid and intelligent young Minister of Justice Ali Sabry, but as a due appreciation of the difficulties of the daunting challenge that he has […]

By Rohana R. Wasala This is without prejudice to the honour and dignity of the thousands of our dedicated teachers and doctors, nurses, and other members of the professions mentioned here. Teaching is arguably the noblest of all professions. Religions were founded by ancient sages who claimed to have discovered the ultimate truth about existence […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Sadly, outside Sri Lanka, little known are the Sinhala language and the ethnic community known as the Sinhalese who have spoken it as their native tongue over the millennia. Both have been eclipsed by Sri Lanka’s huge northern neighbour India with its teeming millions speaking diverse languages, with none of which […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Sri Lanka is sliding into international fame, perhaps for the first time since the Cricket World Cup win in 1996, but on a much larger scale, due to Yohani’s gradual emergence over the past two or three years, first as a bilingual (Sinhala and English), then as a multilingual, singer and […]

By Rohana R. Wasala ‘Englishman Ordained as an Upasaka’ by Dr Tilak Fernando (Lankaweb/September 23, 2021) prompted me to write this response. The Englishmen that the writer mentions as having been impressed by Buddhism are no doubt highly knowledgeable about Buddha Dhamma, because, as he claims, they have read books about the subject. Western scholars […]

By Rohana R. Wasala It seems I was born to restore the Sasana in India. When I started Buddhist work in India, a lot of lay Buddhists as well as Bhikkhus in Ceylon started working against me. They did not accept my advice……… I left Ceylon and went to India to do the work for […]

By Rohana R. Wasala When I pen these words, average Sri Lankans are still sleeping. I am ahead of them and awake. That is because of the time zone difference between where I live and Sri Lanka, my country of birth. As usual, as the first thing I do in the morning, particularly these days, […]

By Rohana R. Wasala It may look unfashionable or even indecent to write about Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) in these days of ‘reconciliation’ politics. But that is due to the deliberate distortion of facts by vested interests. So I beg my readers’ indulgence. The Anagarika has been consistently misrepresented by antinationalists as a Sinhala supremacist, a […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Ref. ‘Compulsory training to instil discipline, not jeopardise freedom of choice’ by Rear Admiral (Rtd) Dr Sarath Weerasekera/The Island/September 4, 2021. It is a response to an earlier opinion article of mine under the title ‘Candour without caution dangerous naivety’ (July 29, 2021). Thank you, Dr Weerasekera, for your lavish compliment […]

By Rohana R. Wasala A small country like Sri Lanka with no economic or military power has only two things to its credit – sovereignty and self respect. If we lose sovereignty and self respect, we lose everything.” The late Lakshman Kadirgamar, Minister of Foreign Affairs (1994-2001), quoted in THE CAKE THAT WAS BAKED AT […]

By Rohana R. Wasala (continued from August 28, 2021) Misrepresentation and distortion of history by colonialists and separatists The independence or dominion status that Sri Lanka (then Ceylon to foreigners) was granted by the departing British colonials was not more than a hangover from the British imperialism of the previous one and a half centuries […]

By Rohana R. Wasala (continued from August 23, 2021) Sri Lanka and supranationalism Every Sri Lankan government since independence has acted on the tacit understanding that, while remaining politically independent of India without being overawed by its size or strength, Sri Lanka should maintain friendly relations with its big northern neighbour at all times. But […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Definitions I would be the last to use the words ‘nation’ and ‘race’ interchangeably in the modern Sri Lankan context as some appear to do nowadays. There was a time in the past when in most countries, the two words could be used as synonyms. Each state was formed by a […]

By Rohana R. Wasala It is always in season for old men to learn. -Aeschylus, Greek playwright of the 5th Century BCE Partly to our dismay, gerontocracy has shownIts withered hands of a wizened old wizardBehind the recent cabinet reshuffle, muddle or mess,Moving ministers like pieces on a chessboard, changing,The configuration of portfolios, like pawns […]

By Rohana R. Wasala I have always strongly endorsed the necessity for actors to possess a reasonable degree of social responsibility. The actor who is adored by millions of people owes something to the society, which has given him an elevated and highly respected position. Dilip Kumar  Dilip Kumar was born in Peshawar (which is […]

By Rohana R. Wasala It was recently reported in the media that Public Security Minister Rear Admiral (Retd) Sarath Weerasekera had said that all young persons above the age of 18 years should be given military training in order to inculcate disciplinary values in them. He was speaking at the opening of a new police […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Few in the present government seem to understand that they are holding in their hands the hopelessly misshapen product – a generally weakened Sri Lankan state, that is, a country hamstrung in terms of its national security, economy, its internal cohesion, and external relations – left by the yahapalanaya molestation of […]

By Rohana R. Wasala The cue for writing this piece came from The Island editorial of (Saturday) June 26, 2021 entitled Presidency should be straitjacketed”, which is about the current controversy over the presidential pardon given to former SLFP MP Duminda Silva who had been convicted and sentenced to death for his alleged involvement in […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Dilip Kumar died today, July 7, 2021. The following is a marginally updated version of a review I wrote of the legendary actor’s autobiography  Dilip Kumar – The Substance and the Shadow” immediately after its publication in 2014. The review was published in The Island Satmag supplement on October 04, 2014 […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Government MP Dr. Wijedasa Rajapaksa, a former Justice Minister and an ex-president of the  Bar Association of Sri Lanka, stated over a month ago that the Muslim  World League (owes) families of those who had perished or suffered injuries in the Easter Sunday terror attacks USD 5 mn.” (‘Wijedasa takes it […]

By Rohana R. Wasala  ………Please understand the global movement that becomes a cat’s paw of other individuals and groups who have nothing to do with your deep faith and your sincere desire to live your religion to the fullest to reach their selfish goals. Be brave enough to reject extremism. Rise up against schools and […]

by Rohana R. Wasala The report of the ministerial subcommittee appointed by the president on February 19, 2021 to study the Final Report of the PCoI on the Easter Sunday Attacks and to suggest how its recommendations should be carried out was handed over to the president on April 5 by its secretary Harigupta Rohanadheera, […]

By Rohana R. Wasala Sri Lankan Catholics, led by His Eminence Malcom Cardinal Ranjith, Bishop of Colombo, marked Black Sunday on March 7, with the participation of representatives from Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim religious communities, demanding justice for the victims of the Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks carried out by local Islamist Jihadists two […]

By Rohana R. Wasala All sensible adult citizens of Sri Lanka confidently hope that today’s youthful politicians will realise the importance of working together with their rivals in the national interest while maintaining their separate political identities, because, in the final analysis, all politicians of whatever party or faction they are affiliated to have no […]