{"id":156888,"date":"2026-06-21T14:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T21:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=156888"},"modified":"2026-06-21T14:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T21:42:16","slug":"steel-is-the-rice-of-industry-remembering-sbd-de-silva-at-100-years-jayavayva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/06\/21\/steel-is-the-rice-of-industry-remembering-sbd-de-silva-at-100-years-jayavayva\/","title":{"rendered":"Steel is the Rice of Industry: Remembering SBD de Silva at 100 Years!\u00a0Jayavayva!"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Posted byee ink.<\/a>Uncategorized<\/a>Tags:history<\/a>, India<\/a>, law<\/a>, malabar-games<\/a>, Rice<\/a>, sri-lanka<\/a>, Steel<\/a>, travel<\/a>, WPNS<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

blog: https:\/\/eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 14-20 June 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2020, 120 whales were run aground on Panadura beach, gasping for breath. There was widespread despair at the unfolding scene. Yet there was nary an exclamation from such environmental babblers as the Wildlife & Nature Protection Society (WNPS). <\/strong>These ecomaniacs daily dominate the media, with their chirpings & tweeting & wailings for diverse exotic animals, while groaning about the backwardness<\/em> of rural cultivators \u2013 their subtextual sotto voce being: opposition to industrialization,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     <\/strong>It is not that ee<\/em><\/strong> does not care for the health of workers & cultivators. But the WPNS\u2019 eerie muffling on the whale strandings may be traced to the emission of submarine sonars during the \u2018Malabar maritime war games\u2019 in the same week, wherein for \u2018the first time all 4 Quad nations \u2013 India, the USA, Japan, & Australia \u2013 were exercising their naval sinews in the waters nearby. The USA\u2019s courts restrict sonar usage in such \u2018marine sanctuaries,\u2019 yet the WNPS, heavily funded by the US & EU, etc, exhaled not a hum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018Foreign plans involving Sri Lanka\u2019s ports are progressing apace\u2019, observes Foreign Ministry veteran Sarala Fernando (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>). Especially after the recent US attack on an unarmed Iranian ship near Galle, murdering over 100 sailors, she wonders if it is not time to declare Marine Mammal Protection<\/strong> areas especially around Mirissa & Trincomalee? The US, Australia, Japan & India have been \u2018donating\u2019 to Sri Lanka, secondhand sensors & \u2018stores\u2019 & sea buckets (minus the facilities to make any parts for their ageing equipment), which yet apparently cannot protect us from \u2018marauding Indian trawlers\u2019 and the endless seaborne & airborne drug smugglers\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Fernando wonders if the security largesse is an attempt to grab Trincomalee, the 5th<\/sup> deepest harbour in the world<\/strong>. She also points to the damning clause in the 1987 Indo-SL pact to limit Trincomalee\u2019s use to India alone. The plan to involve the USA & UAE in creating an oil hub in Trinco also poses a threat. The UAE & Israel (both colonies of the USA) are waging war on Palestine, Iran & East Africa. She also points to the growing Israeli incursions into Sri Lanka\u2019s East Coast. The local & foreign attacks on patriotic military officials are also a pressing issue, and she calls for a national conversation on the need to protect our sovereignty & phenomenal biodiversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     It is therefore amusing if not intriguing that the USA embassy (and US & EU government-related NGOs) has been busy \u2018training\u2019 military and civilian personnel about \u2018disasters & emergencies\u2019 across Sri Lanka. Last week the US state department also summoned shipping officials to Washington, on the pretext of offering investment (and inducements to alleviate their economic strangulation of Sri Lanka & Asia\u2019s economies) but, more apparently, to warn Sri Lanka to submit to US dictat to turn Sri Lanka into another node to harass navigation in the ocean called Indian (ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>, 13 June 2026, USA facilitates 8 Lankans to participate in Indian Ocean Ports & Supply Chains Forum).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USA has unleashed their \u2018social media\u2019 Gen Z poodles & pitbulls on Indonesia for refusing to base US aircraft there to harass China at the Straits of Malacca. Meanwhile, the influx of officials \u2018bearing gifts\u2019 & uttering anodynes on climate change & human rights may be linked to their quarterbacking of the attempt to jail former President Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who presumably refused their demands to park military hardware & belligerents on our soil. The intermittent popping up of shady characters during the so-called \u2018aragalaya\u2019, who hark back to the 1959 assassination of SWRD Bandaranaike (see ee<\/em><\/strong> 12 Oct 2019) and the 1962 coup attempt against Sirimavo Bandaranaike (ee<\/em><\/strong> 16 July 2022) in this current endeavour to isolate, neutralize & eliminate national leaders, augurs more than an astrological confluence (see ee Random Notes<\/em>, Psycho\u2019s Coup Daddy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The origins of the diverse coalition that has been assembled by the USA & its acolytes to bring about so-called \u2018regime change\u2019 is recalled in review of the novelist Gunadasa Amarasekera\u2019s Roopantharaya<\/em>. ee<\/em><\/strong> continues Sena Thoradeniya\u2019s 2013 keynote at its book launch, which fictionalizes the proceedings of the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC), aka Maha Naduwa \u2013 <\/em>the Grand Trial \u2013 investigating the now-ruling JVP\u2019s 1971 insurrection against the State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Thoradeniya compares the real-life roles of Amarasekera\u2019s characters. He feels Amarasekera\u2019s ability to hold up a mirror to these actors brought upon him unparalleled vituperation, isolation and ostracism. A recent English anthology purporting to represent Sri Lankan poets, Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala & English Poetry from SL & its Diasporas (<\/em>Blood Axe, England) leaves Amarasekera out, as do reviews purporting to represent those who were left out! Amarasekera\u2019s novel tracks these masked pilgrims\u2019 progressions from prison to NGOs and to advisors & policy makers, where the tragedy of July 1983 offers them a stepping stone. Provided with names barely disguised in the novel, the characters go on to occupy so-called \u2018elite\u2019 positions in universities & the foreign service.  They have apparently come into their own now. But what a path of destruction they have left and will leave in their wake, heightens the drama. Thoradeniya feels Amarasekera in full bloom may only find resonance in the fictional exertions of famed African novelists such as Kenya\u2019s Ng\u0169g\u0129 wa Thiong\u2019o\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USA\u2019s War Department this week excised their \u2018Indo<\/em>-Pacific Command\u2019 moniker into \u2018Pacific Command\u2019, dropping the \u2018Indian\u2019 allusion from their name, just after the USA attacked Indian ships in the Persian Gulf and killed several Indian seafarers, to which India apparently and unusually reacted \u2018sharply\u2019. And midst all natter about ceasefires & \u2018freedom of navigation\u2019, England also hijacked a ship bound for India, claiming it to be a Russian tanker. They then sent their top trade envoy, John Hannett (a Labour-Party Lord!), to presumably \u2018talk shop\u2019 in Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Hannett inspected English parasites like HSBC (famed opium smuggler), Unilever (which this week claimed marketers should not just promote consumption & monopolize markets but \u2018guide transformation\u2019), Coats Threads (supplying the rag fraud, which does not make a pin) and several auto \u2018showrooms\u2019 & \u2018service centres\u2019 (responsible for importing cars & parts to bulge the ever-widening trade deficit). Hannett avoided visiting English chemical importer CIC (ICI) & English cancer-spreader Ceylon Tobacco (CTC)\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018Just won\u2019t do, old chap to rattle them skeletons.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of their favourite politicians \u2013 who the English grease amply replenish \u2013 the footnote fetishist Harsha de Silva, MP, was heard this week warning the Central Bank, to \u2018prevent non-technical interpretations\u2019 for \u2018becoming a narrative\u2019. This de Silva is given electronic stuttering ample enough to disorient whales. The footnote fetishist\u2019s accomplice in the 2015 bond scam and its coverup, Ravi Karunanayake, was even heard declaring, \u2018CBSL has today become \u2018the branch of the IMF in Sri Lanka.\u2019Errrr<\/em>\u2026, so what else is new?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Corruption & abuse of the public\u2019s Employment Provident Fund (EPF<\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

under the custody of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL<\/strong>) represents<\/p>\n\n\n\n

one of the largest financial integrity failures<\/strong> in the country\u2019s history,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

one that continues to this day with zero regulatory<\/strong> obstacles.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The monopoly media splutters faux outrage about the US President\u2019s petty efforts to insinuate toadies into strategic positions in the USA\u2019s financial, regulatory as well as judicial bureaucracies. Accounts of his insider dealings to profit off his purportedly crazed & volatile pronouncements about the progress of the USA\u2019s incessant warring, may make us mix laughter with any tears, as long as we are not recipients of his terror. Trump\u2019s enablers claim he is giving the finger to his real handlers who have covertly massaged his entry into political power. And yet he is perhaps trying to do what he knows the ruling class already does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In this ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, Dhanusha Pathirana exposes how an \u2018exclusive CBSL Staff Provident Fund (SPF)\u2019 of senior employees, which controls the pensions of workers around the country, leaves it \u2018wide open to the private gain of an exclusive group of rogue financiers, bureaucrats, and politicians.\u2019 The SPF having access to insider information, possessing \u2018a total monopoly over privileged market-altering macroeconomic information\u2019, can manipulate the economy, while claiming to be independent<\/em>, thanks to the new IMF-inspired Central Bank Act<\/em>. Pathirana\u2019s answer is to merge the CBSL Staff Provident Fund into the general public EPF. Yet, would this prevent so-called inside market manipulation? Will the ostensibly ruling class stop ruling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>The media is in late pregnancy with advices on the economy from various experts (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>) but none dare call a mamoty a mamoty (nor ask why England that does not use mamoties still owns the IPR to their usage here!). The much-published economists keep hoping that matters will return to \u2018normal\u2019, and they can get back to playing their rentier games, of speculation, peculation & money-laundering. Yet they cannot openly admit that it is abundantly clear the USA & Europe & Japan are escalating war on Asia, Africa & the Americas, east, west, south, north & central. They cannot name the USA as the main perpetrator, the leader of the pack of jackals or hyenas or whatever quadrupeds one seeks to blame for capitalist proclivities. Israel (& the Jews) are convenient patsies, when Christian & Muslim & so-called Hindu egoists could very well compete for ranking in these \u2018hunger games\u2019. Egoism which drives capitalism, though rooted & well-versed in white supremacist patriarchy, honors no epidermis, genitalia or national boundary\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Sri Lanka spends Rs300bn a year on advertising in the media, much of it controlled & wielded by multinational banks & corporations (MNCs) such as Unilever, etc. At least this is what they say they spend. And how much of this is to avoid paying taxes, we do not know. USA\u2019s Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, & Microsoft (GAFAM) control more than 7,000 companies, \u2018giving them an extensive but largely underappreciated form of market power\u2019 (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>). It is no surprise therefore that the media, despite its claims to be \u2018free\u2019, \u2018diverse\u2019, inclusive\u2019 and \u2018equal\u2019, saturates our eyes & ears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     It is equally no surprise therefore that we were harangued this week thus: \u2018Today<\/strong>, large business giants such as Samsung, Apple & Microsoft began as small businesses and gradually developed into the global corporations they are today<\/strong>.\u2019 Absolute nonsense!<\/em> An old fairy tale. Apple & Microsoft & Samsung are linked to the US government\u2019s largesse, the former coming out of Xerox. The author of this article in the Wijeya Group\u2019s Financial Times<\/em><\/strong>, presumes to offer a headlined \u2018Way Forward for SME Borrowers.<\/em>\u2019 His prolix bio proclaims himself \u2018a senior banker who served in the corporate management of a leading private bank in Sri Lanka before retirement. He currently serves as a Non-Executive Independent Director of the Regional Development Bank of Sri Lanka. He is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Bankers of Sri Lanka (FIB), an Associate Member of the International Professional Managers Association (UK), and holds a Diploma in Management from ICFAI University, India,\u2019 etc, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>The changes that have taken place in the world since VI Lenin wrote his classic Imperialism<\/em> at the turn into the 20th<\/sup> century to this day at the beginning of the second quarter of the 21st<\/sup> century, is tracked in our latest excerpt of the Tricontinental Institute\u2019s (TI) argument for calling the latest stage: Hyper-Imperialism<\/em> <\/em>(see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>). Lenin tracked the growth of monopolies and cartels to the last quarter of the 19th<\/sup> century \u2013 something the much-decorated FT<\/em> banker appears oblivious to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This TI excerpt begins with describing the effects of the USA going off the \u2018gold standard\u2019 in 1971, forcing other central banks \u2018to recycle their dollar surpluses into buying US Treasury bonds\u2019. TI also recalls the pyrrhic defeat of the USA by the Vietnamese people, and the shift to new technologies midst the translation of Italian Communist leader\u2019s concept of hegemony into \u2018soft power\u2019:: \u2018culture, information, entertainment, non-profits (NGOs), academia, & thinktanks\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     They tabulate the 5 stages of communications technologies<\/strong>, commercialized and weaponized, between radio, telephone, internet, streaming, & smart phones. They describe the new methods of mass dissemination and blanket censorship. Alongside this is the rise of fictitious capital<\/em>, its role in the 2007-8 financial meltdown, as well as the USA\u2019s subordination of Europe & Japan,  and the rise of China, is being met by rising hysteria. It concludes with a valuable \u2018Periodization of Imperialism\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is no wonder that SBD de Silva, to whom this blog is dedicated, proclaimed, that he wrote for himself<\/em>. He wrote to make sense and tease out what he was trying to say. He inscribed for himself alone. Such a media, ruled by petty merchants & moneylenders, on behalf of their colonial masters, would not be interested, let alone comprehend what he sought to explain, by traversing history and the world, in order to aid in the transformation of the society he knew best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     We wanted to tape our conversations with SBD de Silva, but he would adamantly refuse. He saw it as a means to supress his free flow of thoughts: \u2018What if I change my mind!\u2019 We even tried to secretly tape him, but strangely they never ever came out. Perhaps we should ask the US or English government who would surely have, having tried to prevent his policies being implemented, calling him a \u2018commie\u2019 etc, and eventually driving him out of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Those who heard him, with no urging, voluntarily addressed him as \u2018Doctor\u2019 & \u2018Professor\u2019 & \u2018Sir\u2019, but most called him SB!<\/em><\/strong> February this year would have dated him 100 years old. Yet this week witnessed the 8th<\/sup> anniversary of the passing of SBD de Silva. His 100th<\/sup> year passed publicly uncommented in a media terrain known for its effusive & paid-for obituaries & eulogies, and yet he is remembered mostly by those who were aware of his unparalleled genius, where any RIP<\/em> would demand of this unrepentant historical materialist: Return if Possible!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018In a landscape that is intellectually sparse & monotonous,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

any contribution to, or contact with scientific effort becomes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

magnified. In such a wasteland collaboration including scrutiny<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& comments on work in progress is hard to get, especially<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when not directly related to one\u2019s professional commitments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the advancement of knowledge is not generally possible<\/p>\n\n\n\n

without some degree of collaboration \u2013 preferably of an<\/p>\n\n\n\n

interdisciplinary nature \u2013 & this means working together, not just<\/p>\n\n\n\n

good fellowship. One carries out research as well as participates<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in it, whether in formulating problems, in administering<\/p>\n\n\n\n

questionnaires & obtaining data, or in subjecting to criticism<\/p>\n\n\n\n

what one writes before publication. There are several reasons why<\/p>\n\n\n\n

social scientists would want to publish their works. One of them is<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that knowledge has to be tested & developed through a process of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

confrontation. This need first found public expression in the scientific<\/p>\n\n\n\n

journal & the device of the learned paper. \u2018It is astonishing\u2019, said<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keynes, \u2018what foolish things one can temporarily believe in if one thinks<\/p>\n\n\n\n

too long alone.\u2019 Another reason for publication is that the development<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of science is a process of interchange, & an individual\u2019s work must be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

adjusted to already existing work & also pave the way for others. In the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

end there is inevitably a personal element \u2013 not just a \u2018narcissistic instinct\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to see one\u2019s ideas in print but the expression of one\u2019s social involvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Erich Fromm explained, every human being has a natural urge to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

become related to society through ideas & moral values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The social scientist cannot endure loneliness; for him communion is life.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 SBD de Silva, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment (PEU)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>This week saw the celebration in the USA of Juneteenth<\/em><\/strong>, which recalls the supposed fall of the last stronghold of slavery in the USA\u2019s state of Texas in 1865. The US army arrived to declare \u2018absolute equality of personal rights & property rights between former masters & slaves\u2019\u2013 though the enslaved owned no property! The US Army also demanded that \u2018The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes & work for wages<\/strong>. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts\u2026\u2019 (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This ee<\/em><\/strong> continues Chapter 11 of SBD de Silva\u2019s classic PEU, <\/em>where he recounted how the new wage slavery, was more profitable to the capitalist than chattel slavery: \u2018debt<\/strong>, became a substitute for the slave driver\u2019s whip<\/strong>.\u2019 This excerpt describes how plantation slavery blocked the use of technology, for \u2018technology is the child of competition\u2026\u2019 Money was not to be invested in technology but in increasing the use of enslaved, low-paid, resident labor. The other reason was the expenses of absentee ownership. SB provides searing examples from Sri Lanka, the rest of Asia, Africa, & the Americas.  The use of technology was prevented even if such inventions were available. Experiments were made that showed that mechanization of tea production was possible. but it was rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The production monopolist<\/strong> must be distinguished from the trading monopolist<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former protects himself by reorganizing the production process<\/strong> or by putting<\/p>\n\n\n\n

out new products<\/strong> (ie, differentiating his market). The latter resorts to extra-economic<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

restrictions & vested interests<\/strong>, including trade licences, royal charters, legal privileges<\/p>\n\n\n\n

&, in the heyday of merchant capital in Europe, physical violence<\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of the most amazing insights SBD offered: the difference between industrial producer capital which dominated in the imperialist countries and merchant capital, which depends on privileged access to the state and physical violence. Welcome then, to the whole merchant media game of \u2018corruption\u2019 which is promoted by the media as some kind of genetic flaw inherent in the darker peoples!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 ee<\/em><\/strong> therefore dedicates this bumper issue to SBD de Silva. This ee<\/em><\/strong> recalls rather cursorily, inadequately, and rather maddeningly, the history of the short-lived Steel Corporation of Ceylon (SPC<\/strong>): how it was built, how it was sabotaged & privatized, and how the merchant media has sought to justify its destruction & retardation. We also record how the exploitation of our abundant sources of energy & minerals are blocked. (see ee<\/em><\/strong> Focus<\/em><\/strong>, ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The sabotage of the Steel Corporation follows a trajectory, very much resembling the history of the country after 1948 in particular. The attempt to sabotage the 1952 Ceylon-China Rubber-Rice Pact<\/em>, the prevention of a development bank, the undermining of the Paddy Lands Act<\/em> by a London court, the expulsion of ministers advocating industrialization, the tripping of the 10-Year plan, the assassination of SWRD Bandaranaike, the plan to set up a Steel Corporation, the setting up of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, the attempted coup d\u2019etat against Sirimavo Bandaranaike, bribery to prevent the takeover of the private news monopolies, the splitting of the Sirimavo cabinet, and that government\u2019s eventual defeat\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This week saw the crashing of 2 trains in England, whose train system is in the process of being renationalized, after being privatized & run into the ground. No matter that Europe is in a state of anarchy & renascent fascism, our merchant-media-promoted economists, prompted by the latest fads in Washington & London, and bribed to the hilt, have no use to examine the models offered by the East Wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The much-touted \u2018failure\u2019 of state corporations is their supposed inability to make profits. Not their inability to make steel or machines, clothes or paper. The question then arises of why something is made. \u2018When it is done for profit, you get what happened to all the privatized industries\u2026 like US Steel.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     With real industry, one thing leads to another\u2026and another\u2026and another\u2026and people are employed with dignity, unlike by private companies who monopolize the country\u2019s resources and cannot or will not treat people well. More importantly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018Steel is the rice of industry\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, reminded SBD de Silva, quoting an unnamed Japanese sage. He could have added\u2026.. \u2018and our people are needlessly being kept hungry\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Steel is the Rice of Industry: Remembering SBD de Silva at 100 Years! Jayavayva!<\/a><\/blockquote>