Even as the rest of South Asia is at a loss to fully comprehend a ‘peaceful people’s struggle’ (Aragalaya in Sinhala) overthrowing the ‘all-powerful and autocratic’ (?) Rajapaksas, historians on contemporary Sri Lanka, would record that it was also ‘regime change by another name.’
The term, ‘Regime change’ was originally coined by pro-Rajapaksa groups at the height of the 2015 presidential poll. This one also contrasted with two previous ‘people’s struggles’ transformed into militant insurgency of the left-leaning JVP kind in 1972 and 1987-89, put down with equal military force. The military-minded regime of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa did not know how to put down what was projected as a non-violent struggle. The result: he had to put his head on the altar along with those of his clan members in public life, and quit as unceremoniously as his arrival was celebrated less than three years back.
