evidence: It was also the year of the political aragalaya (struggle) that dethroned the Rajapaksa family. The aragalaya was tamed, but not before it forced former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to flee his official residence in May and his brother, former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to flee the presidential palace in July 2022. The aragalaya powerfully expressed the spirit of democracy and individual rights. But its demand for ‘system change’ was utopian. Its participants clamoured for better governance without interrogating the ethnocracy that undergirded Sri Lanka’s majoritarianism, corruption and impunity. It is best viewed as a mass agitation against corruption stemming from the scarcity of essentials. But the spirit of the aragalaya and its demands will resonate with the government as it negotiates the writing of a new constitution. President Ranil Wickremasinghe — who was installed as prime minister when the president and prime minister from the Rajapaksa clan fled — can be credited with taming the aragalaya. [...] But the price of goods has skyrocketed. Most Sri Lankans cannot afford to buy what was previously unavailable. The surface calm masks much suffering. According to the University of Peradeniya, over nine million people now live in poverty. Other reports claim around 70 per cent of people are being forced to eat less than usual, while 20 per cent of students are going to school without food. School dropout rates have increased, as have malnutrition and emaciation. Sri Lankans are leaving the country in record numbers, women are being trafficked to the Middle East and people are selling kidneys in desperation.