And no play held that mirror more honestly than Ranasinghe Rajapakse Samarakoon’s Kelani Palama. In one iconic scene, following a devastating flood, a Government clerk visits the families living beneath the Kelani Bridge to assess their losses. During a heated exchange, Matilda asks him a simple but devastating question: after paying rent, buying milk powder, and meeting the month’s basic expenses, how much of his Government salary is actually left by the 10th of the month? The embarrassed clerk has only one defense. Clutching his status, he insists that he belongs to the middle class and, above all, that he still has dignity: “That — that’s none of your business. That’s a middle-class lifestyle. We have dignity.”
From theatre stages to household budgets: The vanishing middle-class ideal
That scene was written nearly five decades ago. Yet, it feels as though Samarakoon was writing about the Sri Lanka of today. For generations, the Sri Lankan middle class measured success not by ostentatious wealth, but by this very dignity. A steady job. An ironed shirt. A modest home. A good education for their children. It was built on the fundamental belief that hard work would secure a better tomorrow.
Today, that belief is cracking. The economy may be recovering on paper. Inflation has eased, and growth has structurally returned. But, for millions of middle-class families, recovery feels entirely different. Tax burdens have multiplied, disposable incomes have shrunk, and the dreams of owning a home, upgrading a vehicle, or simply saving for the future have slipped out of reach. The real question facing the Nation is no longer whether Sri Lanka’s economy is recovering. It is whether Sri Lanka’s middle class can still afford its dignity.
There is a familiar observation about Sri Lanka’s middle class: it is not built on wealth; it is built on hope. That hope has shaped its political behaviour for decades. Unlike the wealthy, whose fortunes are rarely determined by election promises, the middle class listens carefully to every manifesto. It is this group that invests its aspirations in promises of better schools, lower taxes, affordable housing, stable prices, and greater opportunities. Every election renews that hope. Every manifesto offers another vision of a better tomorrow.
This is also why the middle class remains one of the country’s most decisive political forces. It has the power to elect Governments and, when its hopes are repeatedly betrayed, the power to remove them. No other social group responds as strongly to the gap between promise and reality. That is precisely why the middle class is so vulnerable today. It has invested not only its vote but also its future in the belief that each new Government would improve its quality of life. When that belief begins to fade, the consequences are not merely economic. They are deeply political.
In the Sri Lankan Tamil culture, there is a well-known proverb: “Kuppaile Mulaiththa Kirai Kappalukku Paimaramāhuma?” It literally asks, “Can the greens that sprouted in a garbage heap become the mast of a ship?” The proverb is used to question whether something that emerges from an unlikely or inferior origin can realistically serve a great or demanding purpose. It expresses doubt about placing excessive expectations on something that lacks the necessary foundation or stature. Applied to our current reality, it forces a harsh question: can a Nation emerging from structural bankruptcy expect its citizens to maintain a middle-class lifestyle without the foundational economic stability to support it? As we edge closer to the 2029 electoral cycle, this remains the million-Dollar question
Survival economics and the shrinking space of stability
The Government’s own figures tell the story. As of April of this year (2026), the official national poverty line stood at Rs. 17,117 a month per person. A family of four now needs about Rs. 68,468 a month merely to remain above the poverty line. This is a survival number, nothing more — built on a consumption basket last surveyed in 2012/2013, updated only for inflation. By this measure, 24.5 per cent of Sri Lankans were poor in 2024. The World Bank warned that by last year (2025), more than one-third of the population would either be poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty. The Welfare Benefits Board paints an equally troubling picture. More than 1.6 million families, nearly six million people, are now officially classified as extremely poor, poor, vulnerable or transitional. That final word, transitional, says more than any statistic. It is the Government’s own quiet admission of what many families already know. The journey from the middle class to poverty rarely happens overnight. Unlike Podi Sinno’s sudden collapse on the Kelani Palama stage, it happens silently, one household budget at a time.
No country emerging from bankruptcy can perform miracles overnight. The Tamil proverb reminds us of that reality. Economic recovery and human dignity are not the same thing. A country’s finances may take years to recover. Its citizens should not have to lose their dignity in the process. That is why the middle-class matters. Its dignity and the country’s political stability rise and fall together. As the American journalist Barbara Ehrenreich once wrote, “The middle class is not so much a demographic category as a state of consciousness.” Protecting that consciousness may be just as important as protecting the economy itself.
The recent proposal by the Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development Minister, Wasantha Samarasinghe, shows exactly how fragile that dignity has become. Before coming to power, the National People’s Power repeatedly pledged to improve the living standards of farmers and argued that the country should not have to rely on imported rice. Yet, soon after assuming office, the Government approved the import of 70,000 metric tonnes (MTs) of rice. In March, it authorised a further 1,040 MTs of substitute Samba varieties to address market shortages. Against that backdrop, Samarasinghe’s recent suggestion to provide 20 kilograms of rice as a loan to public servants has inevitably sparked debate. Temporary assistance during hard times is not the argument here. The real question is whether such measures strengthen or weaken the dignity of citizens who earn their living through regular employment. The middle class does not expect miracles from a country recovering from bankruptcy. What it seeks is the ability to live independently through its own income. Lower prices, real wages, and jobs that last, these preserve dignity.
Recovery without relief: When policy and purchasing power diverge
Take a moment to think about your own household. How often do you now go to the cinema or watch a stage play? When was the last time you bought a Sunday newspaper without thinking about its price? If two weddings fall in the same month, or an unexpected medical bill arrives, what happens to your monthly budget? These are not simply lifestyle choices. They reflect purchasing power. And that purchasing power is steadily shrinking. If this trend continues, Sri Lanka may once again face a social crisis, perhaps not in the form of the Aragalaya of 2022 (a public movement that sought a political system change), but in another form altogether.
We should not forget the insight of American political sociologist Barrington Moore Junior, who famously wrote, “No Bourgeoisie, No Democracy.” In Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, he argued that a secure middle class is one of the foundations of a stable democracy. When that foundation is eroded by survival economics, the democratic structure itself becomes vulnerable to populist reversals.
The Aragalaya was not merely an economic protest. It was also a struggle to preserve dignity. Long queues for fuel, gas and other essentials forced ordinary families into a situation that they never imagined that they would face. Former President Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa eventually stepped down because that frustration had reached its limit.
Today the queues have disappeared, but, a different pressure has emerged. Higher taxes, rising living costs and declining purchasing power continue to weigh heavily on the middle class. Citizens accept that rebuilding a bankrupt economy takes time. What they seek is not a miracle, but a fair sense that the burden of recovery is being shared.
If Kelani Palama was staged today, perhaps Matilda would ask one final question. Looking at those in power, she might simply ask: “Comrade, you promised us rice that we grew ourselves. You gave us rice on loan instead. Is that the dignity that you promised the middle class of this country?”
The writer is a researcher, elections analyst and civil society advocate specialising in democratic reform and electoral processes. He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Reforms and Electoral Studies
