Asoka Bandarage Photo by Jim Gipe

Asoka Bandarage, professor and former chair of women's studies at Mount Holyoke, left her native Sri Lanka thirty years ago, but being an immigrant in the United States has not diminished her passionate determination to alert the world to struggles in her native land. While reports on Sri Lanka in the American news media have been dominated by ethnic conflict, Bandarage has recently produced a documentary film exposing a very different struggle being waged in a small village in the north-central province of Sri Lanka.

Eppawala: An Urgent Appeal from Sri Lanka, screened recently at Mount Holyoke, draws attention to a phosphate mining proposal by a multinational corporation, IMC Agrico (in which the United States and Japan are key partners), and the potential devastation to a thriving village that produces the highest yields of rice in the country. The film chronicles the story of Eppawala, situated not far from the ancient capital of Anuradhapura on ample deposits of a unique phosphate variety used in fertilizer for cash crops such as tea. The proposal calls for the relocation of the 30,000 Eppawala villagers, and would destroy the town, including the local college, hospital, and government buildings.

Sri Lankan flag

Eppawala, the film notes, is merely one of many villages that would be affected by the multimillion-dollar mining venture. The program would additionally destroy an ancient and highly successful irrigation system, the ecology of the region in general, and heritage areas, including significant archaeological sites. Bandarage's film provides a background glimpse of the colorful culture and history of the Eppawala region, and reports on the significant protest movement that has developed in response to the mining proposal. The film, conceived and produced by Bandarage, was written and directed by Priyantha Colombage. It is Bandarage's first experience with the film medium, and she is currently searching for a distributor.

A writer and social activist who characterizes herself as a global feminist and environmentalist, Bandarage hopes the film will help educate the public on problems in Sri Lanka that go beyond “stereotypical reports.” Such news reports on the armed struggle between guerrilla forces of the Tamil minority population and the Sinhalese, who make up the majority, have obscured other serious problems Bandarage feels demand global attention.

“A much broader sociopolitical analysis is needed regarding the mining situation,” she says. “This story is not entirely local and must be understood through the lens of globalization. Transnational corporations are becoming freer to do what they want. There are some positive contributions, but the negative effects are long-term.” She sees the privatization of community resources by transnational corporations in poor and non-English-speaking villages, in particular, as a serious global issue.
Bandarage is in the habit of thinking beyond borders and about people in economically depressed societies. She has focused much of her research on the plight of women in the Third World. Her most recent book is Women, Population, and Global Crisis: A Political-Economic Analysis (Zed Books, 1997, reprinted 1998). This fall she was invited to speak at the Institute for Ecological Sustainability at the University of Minnesota and the Women Waging Peace Project at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. This month, she will participate in a symposium at Wellesley College on the topics “Global Perspectives on the Black Woman” and “Gender in the Age of Globalization,” and next semester she will deliver a lecture for the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University.

Bandarage says her vision for a “more sustainable path” is in the Buddhist tradition. Her religion and her native language, Sinhala, are the focus of a new series of videos Bandarage is producing for the children of Sri Lankan expatriates. “I want to teach my son my language and to share my culture with him,” she says. Bandarage (whose husband is American) was born and raised in Colombo, but lived outside the city as a child. While she had the advantage of a bilingual upbringing and attended a Buddhist school for girls, Bandarage says the legacy of British colonial influences resulted in some confusion for her. “I was taught to love your tradition, but that English is more important in the world,” she says.

Bandarage speaks of the sense of guilt expatriates feel in leaving their native country. “I tell my students we have to move beyond guilt,” she says. “There's much we can do in a nonviolent and democratic way to effect change, even from here.” At Mount Holyoke, Bandarage, who has been a member of the faculty for ten years now, teaches courses on globalization, Buddhism, feminism, and ecology. Her recent film has enabled her to share with her students and the MHC community the story of Eppawala, a story that provides a vivid and concrete example of problematic aspects of globalization.

Bandarage notes that her documentary has recently been aired on national television in Japan, and that, subsequently, one of the corporations has pulled out of the mining project. This was followed by a recent Supreme Court decision in Sri Lanka ruling against the project. Ultimately, however, the multinational corporation still has control, she says. But Bandarage would like to think her efforts have contributed to raising public consciousness about the issue, and that the ongoing protests in Sri Lanka will influence a satisfactory outcome.