ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on civil society in Sri Lanka. Emboldened by the post-9/11 trend of implementing counter-terrorism measures, the then Sri Lankan government metamorphosed into a near-authoritarian regime. Citing national security, it severely suppressed dissent from opposition political forces and vocal civil society actors, resorting not only to violence-laced threats and intimidation but also disappearances and killings. Whereas certain sections of civil society engaged in self-censorship, a small but influential section employed novel strategies to contest and resist state suppression. This chapter unveils the latter against the backdrop of fluctuating state–civil society relations from 2005 to 2020, with an exceptional and relatively permissive and democratic government from 2015 to 2019 (an interim popularly known as Hell’s Interval).
