A karmic reckoning for a nation and its rulers
Iwonder what a mother, struggling to find medicine for her child in Colombo (one does not have to go into rural areas to witness the abject desperation of those caught up in Sri Lanka’s spiralling financial crisis) would have thought of the pomp and glamour paraded at the Galle Face Green on Saturday, 4th February?
Needless cruelties inflicted on the people
Certainly nothing of this was much out of the ordinary, just the same grandiose balderdash that is spun each Independence Day. Perhaps there was a wee nod to minimum political correctness this time with the National Anthem being sung in Tamil as well as in Sinhala. Earlier, the refusal to allow this was just one of many needless cruelties inflicted under the Rajapaksa Presidencies of both brothers (Mahinda and Gotabhaya) on (minority) citizens.
In tandem with other entirely unavoidable petty hostilities, including a state policy not to bury the covid-affected Muslim dead, these constituted the core of a ‘majority game’ played with glee by political rulers at the time. Vicious majoritarian supremacy rhetoric masked the fact that the Sinhala majority itself did not gain any noticeable benefit therein, except to be used as fodder by politicians in their power grabs.
In remote reaches of the deep South, Uva, Central and its adjacent regions, the abject poverty of the Sinhala villagers continued much as usual even as they bowed and worshipped at the Medamulana shrine, jostled in cheering crowds at elections and partook of milk rice with relish as their beloved ‘deities’ won. To be clear, that delusion extended to the tri-services and the police, supposedly proud defenders of the nation but who underwent untold indignities, including serv-ing as virtual domestics in the palatial mansions of their superiors.
Karmic fate of the poor
Even so, food security in the poorest regions of the land had never been a problem even in the most dire of times, including during multiple conflicts from North to South. But that assurance was destroyed with Sri Lanka's historically strong agriculture production devastated by Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s abrupt ban of chemical fertiliser, as we may recall, spearheaded by a monk and a trade unionist ‘doctor,’ both charlatans.
Last year, authoritative local and international surveys indicated that malnutrition was most ram-pant in the South as a decades-long admired social security system collapsed. Indeed, this karmic fate of the poor is very much in line with Gotabaya Rajapaksa being reduced to seeking refuge in Muslim countries as he fled the roar of angry crowds in Colombo last year.
So this point must be told and retold, it is this karmic cycle of cause and effect on a nation, the need for collective repentance and reformation that should have taken pride of place this Saturday, led by solemn addresses of religious leaders. If the democratic past (credentials) of this nation and its long suffering people had to be ‘celebrated’ (rather than the egos of its rulers), that would surely have been the most suitable approach?
Cry of the country’s youth not heeded
Instead we had millions expended on the showcasing of military might and state pomposity by multiple (political) idiots, essentially an event replete with ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing,’ with profound apologies to the Bard. Undoubtedly President Ranil Wickremesinghe does him-self no credit by ‘presiding’ over such nonsense, to say the least. The ironies are far too glaring. Several months ago, the Galle Face Green symbolised the resistance of Sri Lanka’s youth against a deeply corrupt political establishment.
Their cry to the country’s rulers across political parties was to, ‘look at yourselves, at the damage that you have done to a nation, to our land, to our futures. Reform, reform, reform.’ It took the social, financial and regulatory collapse of the land for many to realise that they have been hoodwinked. That anger over artful dodgers of the political kind sharing the spoils of the coun-try, ensuring that no political crook is brought to justice while squabbling in public, drove the na-tionwide protests then.
Regardless, we have the State back in full display, parading historic imperviousness to accounta-bility, with no lessons learnt. The arrests of peaceful protestors and the violence by law enforcement officers against citizens holding placards objecting to what they see as a perversion of Sri Lanka’s Independence Day reflect this arrogance in full measure. Reportedly, lawyers had been refused access to those detained on Saturday.
A question of privilege and class
All this is in violation of numerous Supreme Court decisions under the Constitution’s fundamen-tal rights chapter. The clash of the (Sinhala) majority versus the (Tamil/ Muslim) minority had been carefully nurtured by political leaders representing both, almost since independence. But what is rarely acknowledged is the heavily entrenched class of the privileged, anchored in the (undemocratic) loins of the State, which fights literally with all weapons at hand to protect them-selves.
Their numbers are not confined to politicians either, let it be said clearly. There is an obvious danger in all of this. At no point ever before has there been such a gap between parallel realities, between the elite and the ‘rest’ who are erased from existence with Colombo continuing the glitzy ‘playing of the band’ as the ship of State flounders. History teaches us that, these separate realities cannot exist for long without violent conflict.
State repression to contain that violence cannot stand for long against public fury. Meanwhile recognition of the palpable injustice that the State inflicts on those challenging its authority comes from the most unexpected quarters. The recent magisterial order releasing student leader Wasantha Mudalige is an excellent case in point. The legal context of this order cannot be dis-cussed here due to lack of space. Suffice it to say that, the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s finding of the lack of any evidence whatsoever to justify detention of Mudalige as a ‘terror suspect’ is a most telling rap on the knuckles of the State.
Victim of big power rivalry due to our foolishness
Two years ago, when writing a critical reflection on unfolding travails under the Gotabhaya Presidency, I pointed out that, by hastening the ‘Myanmar-isation’ of the Sri Lankan State, national security is directly undermined. Already we have become the victim of big power rivalry in the Indian Ocean. Indeed, our fate exemplifies an ominous fallacy. It is precisely due to acts of our ‘majoritarian’ leaders that the country has become exposed to the very evils that they pledge to protect the country from. Again, karmic cause and effect in direct play.
Violence and more violence only begets further violence as all religious teachings inform us. We have seen this, when communities asking for water were shot at in Rathupaswela and when free trade zone workers in Katunayaka were hunted down and killed for agitating. So too when pro-testors were disbanded by violent force at Galle Face Green shortly after the acceptance of the Presidency by Mr Wickremesinghe in 2022.
The current repression that we saw most recently on Saturday, against citizen protestors is part of this trend. But when the State pits itself against the collectivity of its citizens, the State cannot win.
We need to realise this truth, even at this late stage