Before getting into the main thrust of my argument, I want to be clear about the lost opportunity in post-war Sri Lanka. I am echoing here the words of the insightful Tamil intellectual Kethesh Loganathan, who critiqued the attempts to resolve the ethnic conflict during the first five decades after Independence, in his book Sri Lanka: Lost Opportunities. Tragically, the great opening that came with the end of the war has been squandered by the ruling Rajapaksa regime in the interest of consol...