Collapse of the Aragalaya Protesters in their thousands stormed the President’s House, the Presidential Secretariat and Temple Trees on July 9. Picture by Rukmal Gamage Source:Dailynews On July 9, it looked as if Sri Lanka was undergoing a “revolution” spearheaded by “peoples’ power” in the raw. Massive crowds had converged on Colombo to force President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to quit. The Presidential Palace, the Presidential Secretariat and the Prime Minister’s office were stormed, vandalized, and occupied. But the most striking act was the burning of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s personal residence, a repository of thousands of books and rare objet d’art. Sections of the political class, savouring the anti-Government moves with delight, hailed the events as a triumph of the “popular will” over the “corrupt” Establishment. Constitutionalism was devalued. More shockingly, a former Commander of the Sri Lankan Army, a war hero and the country’s only Field Marshal, urged the Security ...