Development surge in Peninsula India: Lessons for Sri Lanka

THE Department of Economics at the University of Jaffna (Econ @ JU), located in Thirunelvely, Northern Province, Sri Lanka (https://www.jfn.ac.lk/), is pleased to initiate an academic collaboration with the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS https://mids.ac.in/), and the Madras School of Economics (MSE https://www.mse.ac.in/), Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. As part of this collaboration, an inaugural Guest Lecture and a Panel Discussion entitled The Development Surge in Peninsula India: Lessons for Sri Lanka are scheduled to be held on 28 August (Thursday) and 29th (Friday), 2025, respectively, at the University of Jaffna.

- By THAVARASA SUJANTHINI, SIVANESAN MarHusua, LOGANATHAN SIHANIKA, SUVEEDDA PIRATHEEPAN, NERWA NarENTHIRAN, Mary DELcIA ANTONY CHRISTIAN, KAMALAKUMARI KARUNANITHY, AND MUTTUKRISHNA SARVANANTHAN

The main resource person for this inaugural Guest Lecture and Panel Discussion will be Dr. Manimegalai Vijayabaskar from MIDS (https://www.mids.ac.in/baskarv/).! His scholarly credentials can be accessed on Google Scholar at https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FGEGPjcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao. For the Panel Discussion to be held on Friday 29 August 2025, panellists will be drawn from the Departments of Economics at several universities within the lagging regions and beyond, and from the Faculties of Arts and Management Studies and Commerce at the University of Jaffna.

This event aims to foster academic dialogue and regional economic cooperation between North Central (NCP), Northern (NP), and Eastern Provinces (EP) of Sri Lanka and Southern Indian states, drawing on the successful development trajectory of Tamil Nadu and its relevance to the underperforming provinces in Sri Lanka.

Background and rationale

Historical and archaeological evidence suggests that during the precolonial period, particularly in the Anuradhapura-Polonnaruwa era, the Eastern, North Central, and Northern Provinces of Sri Lanka experienced a period of remarkable economic prosperity, supported by expansive trade networks with southern India and the wider Indian Ocean world (Indrapala, 2013). According to both epigraphic records and historical chronicles, successive Chola invasions disrupted this trajectory, compelling the relocation of political authority from Anuradhapura-Polonnaruwa to the central highlands (Codrington, 1994). This transition facilitated the ascendancy of the Kandyan Kingdom and precipitated a protracted economic decline in these provinces (i.e. EP, NCP, & NP), the structural consequences of which remain discernible to the present day (Spencer, 1990; Gunawardana, 1995).2