The wheel of our world, the myth of the protector and how our climate narrative must evolve

Insights narrative shifts drawn after a tropical climate catastrophe

After Cyclone Ditwah raged through Sri Lanka, causing floods, landslides, displacement, and immense losses in life and infrastructure, an old belief resurfaced. This is that, if the country’s leader is immoral, the natural balance will be disturbed, causing havoc. This is a belief that has resurfaced in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of every natural disaster, mostly through habit and occasionally with a political agenda. As ridiculous as the idea sounds, it stems from the worldview shaped by Sri Lanka’s agro-utopianism, where the role of a society’s leader was to maintain the delicate balance between the environment and community, enabling natural cycles to flow in sync with human needs. This is an exploration of that narrative and how it should shift to facilitate climate justice today.

Origins: Chakravarti, the wheel-turner

This belief that the leader is responsible for the environmental balance stems from the pan-South Asian concept of the ‘Chakravarti’. From a mythic-symbolic lens, Chakravarti suggests a ruler whose legitimacy comes not merely from lineage and military power, but from social-environmental stewardship. As defined in ancient South Asian political-religious tradition, Chakravarti means  ‘wheel-turner’. The ‘wheel’ inherent to the meaning of the title is simultaneously a symbol of empire and of Dharma; the moral-cosmic order that includes land, people, seasons, and ecology. In that framework, a Chakravarti’s duty would extend to ensuring the balance of natural systems—rains, fertility, harvest cycles, justice—because sovereignty meant harmony between human society and the land.

The Indian Emperor Asoka is perhaps the most widely associated historic figure with the title ‘Chakravarti’.

Mythic stories that invest a single ruler with stewardship over nature reflect the ancient human longing for a ‘just patron’ of land: one whose power is tempered by responsibility, whose rule upholds not only people but the ecosystem. That symbolism stayed embedded in the cultural imagination long after that political structure dissolved.

In Sri Lankan epigraphic tradition, rulers of the Polonnaruwa period and later used the title ‘Chakravarti’ (or its Sinhalised equivalent ‘sakvithi’) in inscriptions, reflecting a claim to the island's sovereignty and implying the management of the natural and human systems that enabled the success of its deeply agrarian society. 

The Chakravarti dynasty of Northern Sri Lanka’s Jaffna Kingdom is another example of local monarchs who adopted this idea to signify their roles.

Which brings us to 2025, long after monarchies have faded, the belief that the weather is the leader’s responsibility still lingers. But its survival might say less about superstition and more about the timeless human desire for accountability; someone to blame for imbalance, someone to repair the rupture.

But, the reality today is that the cause of the imbalance we face is not home-grown, and the responsibility of turning the wheel is not centred in a singular unit. The cause is global, and the responsibility lies with the collective.

Aftermath: mobilizing for climate justice 

Sri Lanka contributes less than 0.03% of global greenhouse gas emissions, while the world’s top emitters, just a handful of nations, account for nearly 60%. Yet Sri Lanka ranks among the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, disproportionately affected by the effects of global warming, such as floods, droughts, cyclones carrying extreme moisture, rising seas, and unpredictable monsoons.

This is especially true because Ditwah’s severity was not accidental. The cyclone itself, classified as weak in strength, was not the main cause of destruction, but the resulting rainfall and floods. The reason why even the weak cyclone was able to pick up such an extreme amount of moisture that was released on Sri Lanka as the winds made landfall was due to ocean waters warmed by emissions. The warmed ocean acted as a reservoir of energy and moisture that intensified the storm’s rainfall and flooding far beyond what would have occurred in balanced climatic conditions. Heavy rainfall events are significantly amplified by human-driven warming, with atmospheric moisture increasing as the air holds more water vapour as temperatures rise. This direct link between rising ocean heat and extreme storms points to rising risk for some countries, especially islands. In 2015, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) identified Sri Lanka as the South Asian country with the highest relative risk of disaster-related displacement. Industries whose emissions have driven most of the world’s warming bear greater responsibility for the conditions that make disasters like Ditwah more frequent and more severe for vulnerable nations.

Our collective longing behind the ideal of a protector who maintains harmonious cycles should be redirected. Not toward expectation, and certainly not toward blame, but toward an urgent and collective call for climate justice to take responsibility in shaping safer futures. 

Forward: from favour to fairness

It’s in this light that relief support, reparations, climate financing, and infrastructure development are not acts of charity; they are fair and owed exchanges to restore the balance disrupted by a few to the despair of so many. Especially for the industries whose emissions have played the greatest role in shaping the volatile climate we all inhabit today, it’s part of a shared responsibility that can no longer be ignored.

When we see post-disaster assistance as mere generosity, we unintentionally lower the expectations of what a fair global system should provide. The support Sri Lanka receives now should be a doorway to initiate conversations on long-term financing, funding and sharing technology for rainwater management, climate-resilient infrastructure, and disaster-response systems that match the scale of the losses countries like ours face. And crucially, responsibility is not only about emergency aid and reparations; it’s also about using the loss and devastation caused by erratic climates to push global reforms. These are essential elements of the justice owed and a recognition of our interconnected fate. This is not a favour, but fairness.

For everyday citizens, seeking climate justice begins with a shift in narrative. Disasters like Ditwah are not acts of divine displeasure or signs of domestic failure; they are symptoms of a global imbalance that can only be corrected when there is a collective call for justice and a responsibility is shared more equitably. Justice means ensuring that recovery invests in the most affected communities, that development does not sacrifice ecosystems, and that nations and industries respond proportionately to the damage their emissions have helped create.

The balance we once believed rested in the hands of gods and monarchs, today belongs to all of us. When we see support after climate disasters as fairness rather than charity, and we push governments and industries towards climate accountability, we reclaim that older wisdom, and widen the circle of responsibility so that balance becomes possible again. It all begins with shifting the narrative to be more truthful; that climate justice is fairness, not favour.