Sri Lanka

Between April and July 2022, there emerged in southern Sri Lanka an unprecedented political uprising in the modern history of the country—the Aragalaya movement. It brought together a new alliance of forces against the government, uniting all forms of communities from multiple ideologies, the mass movements of youth from the left and the right, lawyers, trade unions, and women’s and religious groups. This article is an exploration of the contingent efficacy of the politics of this movement, both the possibilities it enabled and the limits that circumscribed it.

Garments without Guilt? Global Labour Justice and Ethical Codes in Sri Lankan Apparels by Kanchana N Ruwanpura, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, New Delhi and Singapore: Cambridge University Press, 2022; pp xxvi + 198, $99 (hardback).

The impact and relevance of protests demanding President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation, referred to as the aragalaya, need to be scrutinised with respect to the issues related to the ethnic conflict, the truth and justice demands of the Tamil community and post-war state action, such as militarisation, which exacerbated the discrimination and violence suffered by the Tamils.

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The authoritarian populist tendencies of an excessive personalisation of power, curtailment of civil liberties, circumvention of the rule of law, and increasing militarisation of state apparatus have exacerbated Sri Lanka’s lurch towards illiberal democracy, thereby precipitating the grave economic and humanitarian crises.