From Arahant Sāriputta to Political Quietude: Knowledge, Power, and Silence

A Critical Tribute to Professor Tudor Weerasinghe and the Crisis of the Sri Lankan Intellectual

 

Professor Tudor Weerasinghe has been a transformative figure in our lives, profoundly shaping our ways of thinking about media and communication. We were first introduced to his intellectual rigor through his insightful Saturday morning lectures on media criticism during our undergraduate Honours in Mass Communication finals in 2003 at the University of Kelaniya.

 

One vivid memory that remains with me is his philosophical lecture on postmodernism. At the end of that lecture, he distributed a long, meticulously prepared handout and asked us to make copies for our fellow undergraduates. It was my first experience of encountering such generosity of knowledge—an academic who did not guard ideas as personal property, but instead insisted on their circulation and collective engagement.

 

Over time, we were fortunate to associate with him not only as an outstanding scholar, but also as an exceptionally kind and humane individual. Unlike many popular Sri Lankan academics who relied on flamboyance, excessive self-esteem, or performative authority, Professor Weerasinghe possessed a rare intellectual humility. His oration and conversations had the power to fundamentally redirect discussions—always analytically rigorous, philosophically grounded, and logically precise. One of my colleagues once remarked that, amid the politicised, exaggerated, and often theatrical academic talks we were accustomed to, listening to Dr. Tudor Weerasinghe was like listening to Arahant Sāriputta—someone capable of decisively transforming the direction of collective thought.

 

Beyond his intellectual brilliance, his humane qualities were exceptional. There was a childlike warmth in his facial expressions, a gentle smile, and a profoundly nurturing kindness in the way he engaged with everyone—whether in public or private, in front of him or behind him. To be entirely honest, he was the only media theorist in Sri Lanka whom I encountered who demonstrated such thorough reading, deep critical introspection, and conceptual clarity about what media truly is.

 

Most significantly, he was the first academic in Sri Lanka to insist that “media is an industry.” Until then, many—including ourselves—had romanticised media as purely creative, aesthetic, or expressive communication, often losing sight of the material, economic, and institutional forces shaping it. His philosophical framework for analysing Sri Lankan and global media cultures emerged from a rigorous engagement with classical political economy combined with deep-rooted philosophical scrutiny. In his early decades, one of his most challenging intellectual undertakings was the development of Sinhala technical terminology capable of translating and localising concepts drawn from early European classical texts.

 

Professor Weerasinghe also stood as an iconoclast against the then-dominant school of Mass Communication at Kelaniya, which often indulged in idealised and uncritical notions of media. In contrast, he introduced a deeply philosophical, objective, and critically grounded approach to teaching and understanding media studies in Sri Lanka.

 

At the same time, I must candidly acknowledge a tension that later emerged. His subsequent connections with the state and governmental alliances appeared to conflict with the classical political economy of media and philosophical critique he had once taught us. In this sense, what we were cognitively shaped to understand through his early teachings now appears almost topsy-turvy when viewed against Sri Lanka’s rudimentary political culture and the broader structural dilapidation of academic life in the country—where intellectuals are frequently challenged, compromised, or eroded by political realities.

 

Yet despite these contradictions, Professor Tudor Weerasinghe remains, for us, a pioneer and forefather of cultural and intellectual transformation in Sri Lanka. His role in initiating critical traditions, nurturing emerging talents, and reshaping local, regional, and global media scholarship is undeniable.

 

Frankly stated, Professor Tudor Weerasinghe has been a true mentor and don—a figure possessing the qualities we encounter in world-class universities: no self-exaggeration, no ego, no performative authority, and no anger. Instead, there was an almost innocent simplicity—like that of a child—who approached others as fellow human beings, stripped of artificial hierarchies, titles, prestige, or academic vanity. He never ridiculed or attacked others for their mistakes, intellectual limitations, or social disadvantages, unlike the clapping, clashing, and performative dominance so often witnessed within Sri Lankan academic culture.

 

In this sense, Dr. Tudor Weerasinghe has been a living model for our lives—a guide toward an ethical academic path rooted in tolerance, humility, and humanity, combined with immense scholarly insight and intellectual depth. Calm and gentle in presence, yet formidable in thought, he exemplified what it truly means to be a scholar, a teacher, and a humane intellectual.

 

Yet, last but not least, I must articulate an epistemological doubt that continues to trouble me. Why does Professor Tudor Weerasinghe appear silent today in the face of the contemporary state—particularly a government that presents itself as Marxist, socialist, or left-oriented, yet increasingly reproduces non-righteous, exclusionary, and power-centric practices? This silence unsettles me. It raises difficult questions about whether a once-radical theoretical intellect can remain uncritical before state power; whether prolonged engagement with political structures erodes analytical force; or whether the scholar himself has been politically or ontologically marginalised into silence.

 

This unresolved tension—between what he taught us and what we now witness—inevitably destabilises the reverence and intellectual image elaborated throughout this reflection. I pose this question not in hostility, but in fidelity to the very critical traditions he once instilled in us. A response to this silence—whether personal, political, or structural—remains urgently necessary before our eyes and within our intellectual communities.

 

We wish him all the very best.