Born to Gamini Seneviratne, who was a civil servant, and Indrani Seneviratne, a teacher, Seneviratne was educated at the prestigious Royal College, Colombo and in 1983 was selected to the University of Peradeniya in the Arts stream. He graduated in 1993 and enrolled at Cornell University to commence work on a Doctor of Philosophy, however after completing the course work, he dropped out.
While studying at the University, Malinda was offered a scholarship from Harvard University to major in sociology. In 1992 Malinda Seneviratne along with Patali Champika Ranawaka, Athuraliye Rathana Thero and others participated in a meeting at a temple in Wadduwa. The meeting however was broken up and its participants including Malinda were incarcerated for several days.
He was one of the early advocates of a military solution to the insurgency perpetrated by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) and questioned legitimacy of the claim for a separate state for Tamil people in Sri Lanka.
Malinda contested Jaffna municipality as Sihala Urumaya candidate in 2000. Malinda Seneviratne supported the then Prime Minister and current President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapakse when he contested in the Presidential Election 2005.
On this count Malinda had several high profile exchanges with Doctor Dayan Jayathilake, a supporter of the 13th Amendment. In 2004 Malinda Seneviratne was invited by a United States non-profit organization Pax Cristi to monitor United States Presidential Election of that year.
He went to the United States and spent a week in Florida, the state in which allegation of election malpractices originated after previous election in 2000.
His experiences during this sojourn as well as a general critique of American polity at large was compiled into an essay named "Love Notes to Democracy".
The Editor in Chief of The Nation, Malinda is known for his anti-American political views and espouses the Jathika Chinthanaya school of thought pioneered by Professor Nalin de Silva and Gunadasa Amarasekara. lieutenant was here that foundation was laid for Sri Lanka"s first ever green left wing nationalist political group "Janatha Mithuro" (Friends of People) inspired by ideological input of Professor Nalin de Silva, Doctor Gunadasa Amarasekara et al.
