Polity aims to advance democratic consciousness, gender equity, state reform, and social change in Sri Lanka, while interested in South Asia and the World.
As its predecessor Pravada (1991-2002), Polity is published by the Social Scientists’ Association in Colombo, with critical content on politics, political economy, history, women, ethnicity, sexualities, religion, labour studies, agrarian relations, nationalisms, violence, ecology, and much more.
Image-Based Sexual Abuse, and Consent, in the Digital Age
Sely Liyanage
The rapid development of digital technologies has created new forms of content and new forms of harm. Some content is...
India’s Youth Protest and the Limits of Demand-Driven Mobilisation
Manoranjan Pegu
The recent protests ‘led’ by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in India, have been seen as the latest addition to South...
This Government, That Opposition, and the Work Still Ours
Lionel Bopage
For sixty-six years, until his death in 2014, the legendary comrade Bala Tampoe led the Ceylon Mercantile Union...
Our support for the open letter: To Iran’s political prisoners, trapped ‘between two blades of a scissors’
Collective
As migrants and refugees in diaspora and in exile from Iran, who have our loved ones suffering in the Iranian state’s...
Breaking the Spell of an Imperial Photo Album: The Unlikely Beginnings of ‘Colombo Histories’
Sujit Sivasundaram
Where one is based in the world, one’s own positionality, the perspective with which one is writing, is crucial to the...
State Formation and Conflicts in Sri Lanka. Sunil Bastian. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.
Bhadrajee Hewage
Sunil Bastian’s State Formation and Conflicts in Sri Lanka is an ambitious and intellectually sophisticated...
Current Issue
Vol. 14 No. 1 (January – June 2026). 134 pages. Gananath Obeyesekere Memorial. NPP and Neutrality. Iran Solidarity. Justice for Easter Sunday. Chemmani. Cyclone Ditwah. Flood Relief. Microfinance Bill. Peasant Politics. Lunar Calendar. Partitions. Women’s Health. Malaiyaha History. Diasporic memory. Mannar’s ecology. Aloysius Peiris SJ. Cover image Ranjini Obeyesekere. LKR1000 from the Social Scientists’ Association or Barefoot or SLBOOKS.lk.
Archive
Pravada (1991-2002) and Polity (2003-) back issues available here.
Social Scientists’ Association
The Social Scientists’ Association (SSA) was founded in 1977, at a turning point in Sri Lankan politics, economy, and society, marked by among other aspects: the ‘open economy’ market reforms; deepening ethnic conflict; and the growing concentration of executive power. Its initiators were academics from public universities, seeking an autonomous space to grapple with these shifts; and to promote progressive political, economic, and social change.
