by Luxman Aravind
The act of lying is as old as governance itself. But what if the problem in politics is not the lies of the leaders, but the willingness of the people to believe those lies? This is not a benign issue, nor a trivial one. It is a profound psychological and philosophical challenge that speaks to the very nature of power, trust, and the human psyche. The government of Sri Lanka, like many others around the world, has used deceit as a tool to secure and consolidate power. But the more troubling reality is that the public, once again, has bought into the narrative. And this, in itself, is the real crisis. The repeated failures of leadership are not only about broken promises but about a nation steeped in political illiteracy and, more disturbingly, a collective psychological complicity in perpetuating these lies.
The lies themselves are easy to spot. In Sri Lanka, the promises of economic prosperity, stability, and national recovery have rapidly turned into a cruel farce. The promises made by the current government now echo the empty promises of past leaders: economic growth, employment opportunities, and development that never materialized. Yet, despite the glaring contradictions and failures, there is a disconcerting sense of resignation that the country will move from one cycle of unfulfilled promises to another, ad infinitum. The problem is not just that the leaders lie; the deeper issue is that the people believe in those lies long after the evidence has proven them false.
This pattern points to something much deeper, something more psychological than simply a matter of politics. To paraphrase psychoanalyst Carl Jung, “The truth does not liberate. It is the truth that is liberating.” But what happens when a society, collectively, refuses to engage with the truth? What happens when the lie is so deeply embedded in the collective unconscious that it becomes impossible to even recognize it as a lie? Political deceit operates not only on the intellectual plane but on an emotional level. To challenge the lies is to confront a deeply rooted sense of identity and belonging, a psychological defense mechanism that many cannot, or will not, overcome.
The lies that politicians tell are not simply rhetorical flourishes or temporary manipulations; they become part of the social fabric, woven into the collective psyche of the nation. When a population fails to see the lie for what it is, it becomes a coping mechanism, a form of psychological denial. In this sense, the citizens of Sri Lanka, by failing to critically engage with their leaders’ rhetoric, are not just victims of deceit—they are complicit in a political charade that continues to disempower them. The relationship between the leader and the led becomes symbiotic, a psychological dance where the people need the lie as much as the government needs their belief in it.
What makes this even more troubling is the nature of political literacy—or rather, the lack of it. Political literacy is not merely the ability to vote or the ability to recite party slogans; it is the capacity to critically engage with the political discourse, to read between the lines, to recognize patterns, and to resist the emotional pull of populist promises. Yet, Sri Lanka remains one of the poorest countries in terms of political literacy, trapped in a perpetual cycle of myth-making and nostalgia. The myth that a new leader will bring prosperity, that a new government will cure the ills of the past, continues to have a firm grip on the collective imagination, even in the face of repeated failure.
This phenomenon can be seen through the lens of psychoanalytic theory, particularly the work of Jacques Lacan, who believed that the human subject is defined by a lack or absence, and that this lack creates an incessant need for meaning, for wholeness. In Lacanian terms, the political lie fills that void, offering the illusion of coherence, stability, and direction. But this is a false wholeness, a fantasy that, when confronted, causes psychological dissonance. To face the truth of the lie would mean confronting a deeper, more existential crisis—one that calls into question the very structures of meaning that have been built around the nation’s political identity. It is easier, psychologically, to continue to believe in the fantasy than to face the overwhelming truth that the political system, as it stands, is inherently flawed and deeply broken.
This psychological compulsion to believe in the lie is not unique to Sri Lanka. It is a universal phenomenon that occurs in all societies where power is concentrated in the hands of a few and the majority remains passive or disengaged. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt once said, “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.” The cycle of political promises, broken or unfulfilled, turns into a narrative of despair, which in turn spawns a new set of lies. Sri Lanka’s political history is a litany of failed promises, each government serving as a temporary reprieve before the next set of lies takes hold. The problem is not simply the betrayal of promises but the national psyche’s refusal to break the cycle, to challenge the deep-seated narrative that each new leader offers the promise of salvation.
It is easy to criticize the lies of the current government, to point out the discrepancies between their promises and the harsh reality faced by the people. But this is a shallow critique. The more profound issue is the collective psychological and political inertia that allows these lies to thrive. As long as the people continue to view politics as a series of binary choices—one leader versus another, one party versus the other—without critically engaging with the underlying issues of governance, they will remain in thrall to these lies. In effect, the people of Sri Lanka are condemned to live in a political fantasy, forever chasing the illusion of a better future, and never questioning the deeper structural issues that keep them chained to the past.
The true crisis, therefore, is not in the lies themselves, but in the mass acceptance of those lies. Sri Lanka, with its low levels of political literacy, is stuck in a tragic loop of historical amnesia. The political class lies, but it is the people who choose to believe them, again and again. As long as this continues, the nation will remain trapped in the grip of these lies, forever destined to repeat the same mistakes, each time under a different guise. Until Sri Lanka confronts the deep psychological and political undercurrents that allow this cycle to perpetuate itself, it will remain a nation caught in a tragic farce—a land where truth and power are forever at odds, and the people remain entranced by the lies that keep them bound.
