Why Sri Lanka Needs a Sexual

Revolution
The plight of a sex worker in Ratnapura, who was assaulted
by a cop in public and now has her mother remanded over trumped up charges of
prostitution is microscopic of the evils that beset Sri Lankan society.When the victim
complained, the police refused to press charges against their ilk and tried to bribe the
woman to withdraw her complaint. ailing that, they orchestrated a demonstration by
the local three!wheeler wallahs against the aggrieved woman and proceeded to arrest
her "#!year!old! mother, who was later remanded.
This is a case where multiple perils in the everyday Sri Lankan life have shown up
simultaneously. There are the roguish police who act with impunity. There are
sycophant lower courts which serve as a protector of the status $uo and fail to provide
legal protection to vulnerable members of society. There are local hoodlums, compliant
villagers and a residue of feudalism.
Sri Lanka at its independence was free, by the then world standards. They reflected
the standards the colonial %ritain. &owever, freedoms of that era represent only a
fraction of contemporary notion of the civil liberties. They were the best at that time,
yet they were vastly imperfect, including in the mother of all democracies.'
(n short, this is a case which highlights how sordid, brutal and harsh life is, especially
for average folks in an increasingly stratified Sri Lankan society.
The absence of institutional guarantees for the protection of marginali)ed segments
fosters impunity. (t is a vicious cycle and its toll on our lives is well documented.
&owever, one important attribute is missing in this particular discourse. That is our
insular culture which feeds into this general decay. This particular retrograde attitude
towards a wider range of social freedoms has impeded modernity, fostered
subservience and under!achievement.
The contemporary *iddle!+astern history has proved that rigid and regressive social
structures are resistant to modernity and individual rights.
The Sri Lankan case is not as dire as that of the *iddle +ast, which suffers from a fatal
mix of highly descriptive religion, rigid social structures of a ,omadic society and
prolonged absence of any form of meaningful democratic exercise, something that a
ma-ority of %ritish colonies were exposed to, beginning in the ./th century.
,evertheless, Sri Lanka has a problem in terms of increasingly obsolete social mores
which inhibits individualism, civil liberties and personal freedoms including sexual
autonomy.
That should not be the case as the chroniclers of the ancient Sinhala kingdom, such
as Robert 0nox described natives as being freewheeling and native women as being
liberating and confident. The libertarian hospitability of the Sinhalese 1whom he called
2hingulayas3 went to the extremes that they did 4treat their friends with the use of their
wives and daughters.' 1That is going a bit too far in terms of even the best of
trademark Sri Lankan hospitality, though3
The fact of the matter is that the wellbeing of the women touted as the -ustification for
the law is only a facet for creeping morality which is at its heart. %ut that does not stop
women from engaging in prostitution and men soliciting them. *orality does not make
ends meet, but prostitution does.'
Somewhere in the line, the evolution of Sri Lankan social mores got stuck. When or
why it happened is a topic worth exploration by a sociologist.
&owever, here is my reading on the issue. To begin with, ( do not subscribe to the
popular buffoonery that the Sinhalese kingdom that fell to the %ritish hands in .5.#
was one that was enlightened, peaceful and had structures that were better than what
emerged under the colonial rule. *onths before the collapse of the 0andyan 0ingdom,
the tyrannical last king had executed the entire family of his former courtier, +helepola
6dikaram, who fell out of favour of the monarch. 1The youngest of +helepola7s
offspring was placed in a 8vangadiya7 and pounced9 men and male children in the
family were beheaded and women were drowned in the 0andy Lake.3 (n modern
times, those are crimes that warrant a liberal intervention. ,evertheless, %ritish
motives in Sri Lanka were not altruistic, and were primarily mercantile.
&owever, during the latter half of its rule, the %ritish +mpire, the first liberal hegemony
to rule the world, embarked on a truly civilising exercise and unleashed greater
goodness, ranging from economic and social infrastructure to democratic institutions,
that shaped the destinies of its colonies. The subse$uent failure of those countries to
capitali)e on those advantages after their independence was a case of the collective
failure in the nation!building exercise. 2ountries with immense potential such as
,igeria descended into corruption and nepotism under both elected leaders and
military dictatorships, while others like (ndia, which retained its democratic traditions,
failed to economically uplift its teeming masses due to misplaced ideological bias to a
statist and planned economy.
&owever, from the early days, the colonial %ritish revamped the traditional and feudal
societies in the :rient. 2aste based discrimination was abolished. 1The continuance of
the ancient caste system, which ensured the privileges of local nobility was one of the
guarantees that the Sinhalese aristocracy obtained from the %ritish under the .5.#
2onvention, which ceded the 0andyan 0ingdom to the %ritish.3
Sex workers and allies demonstrate against abuse by 46nti!Social %ehavior :rder'
16S%:3, Stratford *agistrates7 2ourt, London, ;uly, <=.>
Sri Lanka obtained universal suffrage in ./>. under the ?onoughmore 2ommission
and free education was guaranteed in ./@@, while the country was still a %ritish
2olony. What is most important, however, was that from the mid!./th century up until
their departure, %ritish set in motion a process of liberal constitutionalism, which
enhanced individual rights, ensured e$ual treatment before the law and underpinned
trade and commerce.
There are the roguish police who act with impunity. There are sycophant lower courts
which serve as a protector of the status $uo and fail to provide legal protection to
vulnerable members of society.'
Those values were e$ually important for that an electoral democracy cannot function
successfully in their absence. (n the evolution of democracy, those values have
preceded voting rights in all the liberal democracies.
(n ./@5, we received independence and during the ensuing years, the modernist
exercise came to a halt, as the local political elites sought to revive indigenous
cultures. lawed nation!building policies such as Swabasha education also had their
toll.
Sri Lanka at its independence was free, by
the then world standards. They reflected
the standards the colonial %ritain.
&owever, freedoms of that era represent
only a fraction of contemporary notion of
the civil liberties. They were the best at that
time, yet they were vastly imperfect,
including in the mother of all democracies.
or instance,in the fifties, in %ritain,
homosexuality was punished with chemical
castration. :ne such victim was the
legendary World War (( code!breaker, 6lan
Kanthilatha, the sex worker in Ratnapura, who was assaulted by a
cop
Turing, who later committed suicide. 1(t took another "= years for his conviction to be
overturned by a royal pardon.3
&owever, while Sri Lanka and much of the newly independent world were locked in the
confines of Aictorian values, another great revolution swept through +urope and
6merica in the sixties. (t is called sexual revolution. (t challenged the puritanical
Aictorian values of the day and radically transformed the way sexuality was perceived.
(t enhanced sexual freedoms and propelled a $uest for sexual autonomy. (t radically
transformed mainstream attitudes towards sex and by extension, enlarged the
confines of civil liberties to the levels which were unimaginable a decade before.
Sri Lanka, like its neighbours missed that revolution. We were busy cheering for the
exploits of *ao Bedong and 2he Cuevara, whose designs were meant to erase
individual identity in favour of collectivism. That turned out to be a -ourney to nowhere,
at best and to eternal servitude and subservience, at worst, as we learnt in the latter
decades of the <=th century.
(n the meantime, the other revolution that swept through the western world liberated
millions. The gay liberation movement sprung from the riots of Stonewall, ,ew Dork, in
the late sixties. orty years on, much of the Western world has legalised same sex
unions, and even better, same sex marriages. 6ctivism by a motley group of men,
women, transgender, feminists, hippies, radicals and students dramatically enhanced
the confines of civil liberties. The world is freer today than it was neverbefore.
The developing world missed that social movement due to economic, cultural and
demographic reasons. Low income levels, cultural baggage, and slow urbani)ation
were factors that impeded the $uest for greater liberties. Those factors are continuing
to foster the disparity between the individual freedoms in the West and the +ast.
Sri Lanka, in fact, had the world7s first female prime minister, a female executive
president and many ministers of the fair sex. &owever, they were all supporters of the
status $uo and had little impact on promoting greater freedoms. Sri Lanka also had an
openly gay foreign minister, a prime minister and a cohort of ministers, yet, even those
intrinsically liberal political elites did not have the political will to decriminali)e, let alone
to legali)e homosexuality.
That was largely due to the regressive local culture, which did not provide an
ideological underpinning for such an endeavour. %y extension, it forces people to live a
lie.
6nd the very failure to institute liberal reforms continues to victimi)e the most
vulnerable and marginali)ed segments of our society. The case of 8%atti7, the woman in
Ratnapura is one among countless such incidents, ma-ority of which go unnoticed and
undocumented.
(t also reveals the hollowness of the moral card. The law against prostitution is one
that is often abused by the cops themselves and other the clients. The law that is
meant to protect women from being exploited, in reality, makes life harder for them.
The fact of the matter is that the wellbeing of the women touted as the -ustification for
the law is only a facet for creeping morality which is at its heart. %ut that does not stop
women from engaging in prostitution and men soliciting them. *orality does not
make ends meet, but prostitution does. 6nd when conducted within safe
confines,regulated and sex workers provided with necessary safeguards against
exploitation and trafficking, prostitution is no different from any other commercial
service. Whereas the existing law on prostitution victimi)es thousands of vulnerable
women, whom the law is meant to protect. (t is this dichotomy between expectations
and reality that the lawmakers of this country E and many other developing countries
E have failed to understand.
(n the final analysis, in any civili)ed society, an adult man or a woman Fand not the
State E is the sole guardian of his or her personal wellbeing. ,either morality, nor
culture provides a convincing -ustification to deprive an adult human of the full scope
of individual rights. Sri Lanka has to go there. 6nd, until, we get there, we are not
civilised enough.
Ranga ;ayasuriya can be reached at -ayasuriyaG"Hgmail.com and
HRanga;ayasuriya on Twitter
Posted by Thavam