New Delhi, March 10 -- Neil Quintus Dias, better known as N. Q. Dias, was a Sri Lankan civil servant whose strategic foresight has largely been forgotten, perhaps due to the xenophobic views and racial prejudices he frequently expressed toward minorities in Sri Lanka. Despite these troubling aspects of his persona, Dias - whose 110th birth anniversary is being observed this year - remains one of the few figures in Sri Lanka's postcolonial state-building process who articulated a coherent strategic vision for the island.

Born into an affluent family in British Ceylon, Dias was intellectually shaped within the elite traditions of Trinity College, Kandy-an Anglican institution that produced several prominent military and administrative figu...