Beyond Sri-Lanka’s Aragalaya: The many other possibilities of being

 One July evening in 1983, my father hopped on the back of his friend’s bike and navigated the burning streets of Colombo. The city was on fire. With news that extremist mobs incited by the majoritarian Sinhala Buddhist government were being encouraged to destroy Tamil homes, businesses and lives, my then 24-year-old father risked the journey from Maradana to Matakuliya, where his father, my Appappa, was working. Desperate to reach his own to ensure a safe passage home, my father and his friend precariously mazed through the smoky eruption of blazing buildings and the stench of burning flesh. Dodging monks robed in orange and maroon who were rounding up groups of young Tamil men, he arrived at Appappa’s office to realise my grandfather had left work at the first whisper of a riot. He was already home. Later that day, fanatic mobs would try to break into this same home, only to be fiercely fought off by my father’s lifelong Sinhala neighbours.

Now known as Black July, this week of anti-Tamil pogroms in Sri Lanka took at least three thousand Tamil lives and expelled nearly half a million. The riots were a climax of generations of ethnic tension and triggered twenty-six years of civil war that ended with a genocide of over one hundred thousand Tamil civilians. To this day, neither the government nor their retaliators have been held accountable for war crimes, including the bombing of safe zones and hospitals and the use of child soldiers. Today, Tamil families (including Sri Lankan Moors, a Muslim minority group) in the north and east, where the war mostly waged, are left disenfranchised and displaced.

Thirty-nine years later, in 2022, Colombo’s streets erupted once more—this time in revolution. The Aragalaya, or “people’s uprising,” united Sri Lankans against an economic crisis, inflation, power cuts, and corruption. Young people led the protests, and despite government crackdowns, the largely nonviolent movement ousted the war-mongering, nefarious Gotabaya Rajapaksa, marking a rare moment of unity. For the first time in years, citizens saw a common enemy, prompting a historic shift. This past September, a third-party candidate, Marxist Anura Kumara Dissanayake, won the presidential election, pledging to hold corrupt politicians accountable. 

When examining the Aragalaya, it is necessary to dissect the ways in which protest was performed to achieve the goals of the majority while also perpetuating fragmentation. I spoke to young artists and activists who were present during the movement, from different walks of life. Each voice was distinct and contradicting at times, highlighting the microcosmic nature of the Aragalaya as a reflection of Sri Lankan society as a whole. 

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While the moment attempted to capture many struggles, ultimately, it prioritised demands that came from the Sinhala-dominant Colombo community. The plight of the people across the island, in more marginal communities, was put on hold as, for the first time in decades, the scarcity of the island affected the capital city. Despite this, it is undeniable that as an unorganised and spontaneous form of action, the movement was riddled with possibilities that inspired a generation of Sri Lankans to strive towards subversive ways of being. 

A hotelier shared her family’s experience at a silent protest in Colombo, waving the Sri Lankan flag. “It was a magical moment of unity,” she said. 

Yet, the flag—a symbol of oppression for minorities—brought discomfort to other activists.

“Just the presence of the flag was a source of discomfort; I wasn’t sold on solidarity being established,” Imaad Majeed, who was home alone when the Aragalaya began, told me. The multidisciplinary artist did not immediately join the movement as they did not feel it was a safe space, particularly as a queer-identifying person. 

The national flag—a symbol intended to unify—was designed as an emblem of Sinhala-Buddhist dominance, long excluding minorities. Its focal point is a lion. Traditionally seen as a sign of strength the Sri Lankan flag has represented for many Tamil and Muslim communities the assertion of violence by a state power against them. Its prominence in the movement signalled a desire to “save” Sri Lanka as it is, rather than to deconstruct and reimagine it. “The flag shows that there needs to be a change in the imagination of the island that enshrines Buddhism and the Sinhala majority, it was as if people were trying to save Sri Lanka but not necessarily deconstruct it,” Imaad explained.  They also expressed concern about the underlying toxic masculinity of the movement, mentioning how “Slogans chanted against the Rajapaksa’s were coming from homophobic sentiments.” 

According to Imaad, the movement failed to produce what systemic change could actually be. This sentiment was echoed by ML, a 31-year-old film director from the war-affected north. Directly affected by the brutalities of genocide, ML expressed cynicism, “there were so many people supporting the Aragalaya; why were they quiet when innocent people were killed?”

Both Imaad and ML highlight the deeply entrenched social divisions of Sri Lanka, where solidarity often comes with conditions. Real change, according to both artists, requires dismantling symbols that perpetuate hierarchy and exclusion. This shift in the imagination is essential—a vision of Sri Lankan identity that is expansive in its value of all histories and voices, rather than reinforcing a singular, dominant narrative.

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Judith Butler writes in Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street, “In the case of public assemblies, there is a struggle…against disenfranchisement, effacement and abandonment.” Even within protest, internal dynamics mirror the overall structure of society. In a place like Sri Lanka, where a revolutionary politic is consistently squashed by the state, it is understandable that the most populous uprising in its history was fettered with divide. The Aragalaya, while empowering for some, ultimately mirrored Sri Lanka’s societal dynamics. 

Class divisions were prominent; a 2012 study by Lund University noted that street protests often mobilise middle-class voices, excluding the most vulnerable. Art activist Gihan Mackay saw this firsthand. “The English-speaking Colombo youth took up the most space, some even becoming influencer activists,” Gihan mused over the initial demands of said groups around environmentalism, a trend he claims was made popular in the west and, when not connected to other struggles, is devoid. 

“The same people pioneering climate demands turned their nose up at the farmers chewing beadle and speaking village slang.” Emphasising the lack of intersectionality in the Aragalaya, Gihan also shared that his participation in the movement meant he was unable to complete projects, which eventually led to him losing work. 

It is important to note that in Sri Lanka, the most class-oppressed community is the Malayagar Tamil people, brought to the island as slaves by the British in the 19th and 20th centuries to work in coffee, tea and rubber plantations. Neo-colonialism and neo-liberal market logic have allowed corporations to refuse an increase in wage and living standards for this community which remains in cycles of generational poverty. Aadhitya Jeyaseelan is a twenty-six-year-old artist with roots in this community who was present as an ‘artivist’ throughout the Aragalaya. 

“At that point, everybody was fucked. We were all experiencing the same shortages. Regardless of being a Malayagar Tamil or not, I come from a classist and privileged background in Colombo, and my own father did not like that I was part of the movement”.  Although her people’s needs were not prioritised, the movement served the broader purpose of highlighting the role of art-making and the power of Sri Lanka’s young people. Aadhi reflected on the movement’s ability to capture the determination of young artists who were keen to make change. “I found a different type of young community there who used their voice through art”.

If the Aragalaya failed to address historical grievances, perhaps it’s because of its unprompted nature and spontaneity. This conversely allowed its strength to be in youth mobilisation and the use of alternative media toppling the powers at large. As stated in the Center for Policy Alternatives, this was “a new era of youth awakening to facilitate political transformation by challenging the existing corrupt system attached to patronage politics.”

        For photojournalist Tavish Gunasena, capturing and sharing moments from the Aragalaya through his Instagram was his way of subverting mainstream media’s agenda. “The New York Times published the only photo of a burning bus. Again, Sri Lanka was seen as an uncivilised place of rioting.”  Tavish set out daily to document and share what he saw from a point of neutrality. The movement was powerful in provoking a strong distrust of traditional forms of media by young Sri Lankans who turned to social media and citizen journalists for on-the-ground news. According to Tavish, this was a moment where the youth could clearly see how existing tensions were exacerbated through sensationalist reporting. “And I think that’s what allowed us to oust the landlord. It was completely non-violent, the people were fed up”.

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Brazillian educator Paolo Freire and philosopher writes in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “if the structure does not permit dialogue, the structure must be changed”. Throughout the history of Sri Lanka, ethno-religious tensions, class and caste divide has riddled the country insecure with tensions bubbling at the surface. Two years ago, an economic crisis that affected the entire island was the tipping point that allowed an awakening spurred largely by its young people. This year, an entirely new government was voted in as the people demonstrated a hunger for change. 

Sri Lanka has a long way to go before its people feel fully acknowledged in their centuries of struggle. My people may not yet have received justice for their genocide, but what if we reframed our conception of justice away from western frameworks? What if revolution could also be measured by individual transformation as opposed to waiting for imperialist, man-made structures to change? As the world around us fails to surprise us in the ways of its callousness and oppression, now is the time that real, embodied community matters. 

As I write this, I prepare to make my way from the south of the island to Colombo, where I will give birth to my first child in a few weeks. I did not believe I would ever return to this place, rife with pain and hurting, let alone make a home and start a family here. My parents, who escaped a genocide, definitely did not envision their youngest child would one day return home.

Revolution already exists quietly in the village of Hiriketiya where Tamil and Sinhala neighbours cross paths daily, exchanging meals and nurturing conversation in the face of an ethnically divisive government. Revolution exists in the way my parents, devout Christians, have come around to my conception. Revolution exists in my body that was abused, was deemed infertile, and one day conceived a baby after years of healing and resensitising. Returning back to my motherland to birth my first child is a quiet revolution.

Everyday in Sri Lanka, I learn more and more from my peers, many of whom lived through war and contributed to the ousting of a fascist government. This experience is rewiring my perspective of life and my journey through it. I am grateful for the way that not embracing a singular identity has opened so many other possibilities of being. A radical imagination. It’s not possible when we assign so many labels to ourselves, create narratives about who we are, and are so consumed with the contents and materials of our life instead of actually being. Revolution starts from within.