Thamil Venthan Ananthavinayagan has written an excellent and elegant book on the constitutional evolution of Sri Lanka’s human rights experiences. The long and cruel ethnic war of 30 years has provided the context. Though it is about the experience of Sri Lanka, the lessons to be drawn from his work have a wider impact as these events are repeated in the postcolonial Africa and Asia with the same insidious pattern. The rise of ethnic and religious chauvinism as an easy path to power, the creation of authoritarian leaders to maintain such power through the generation of further divisions on racial and religious grounds, the constitutional entrenchment of these divisions and the creation of institutional devices to entrench majoritarian power through democratic means have been factors afflicting Sri Lanka but are features common to other postcolonial states. This is the reason why the deep study of the constitutional problems relating to human rights in the context of ethnic strife that Thamil presents in this book will have lasting significance not only in the understanding of underlying issues both in Sri Lanka and other states but also for shaping solutions to the malaise that has set in these different political communities.