A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Back to 500BC.
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Sunday, June 4, 2017
Post-deluge: Forget Megapolis. Focus on Relief, Restoration and Rebuilding
by Rajan Philips-June 3, 2017
The flood havoc has proved to be far worse than anyone could have
imagined. The death and missing toll is now past 300. That includes
nearly 50 school children. Kids who like to have fun running in the rain
have instead perished in the floods. The list goes on, making finger
pointing meaningless. The government invariably is getting the flak, as
it must, for by its own admission the ministry in charge of disaster
relief was not prepared for this disaster. And the minister in charge
was out of the country attending an international conference on
disaster. How more disastrous can you get in your public relations?
Timing never comes right for this government. The Prime Minister’s
pre-arranged medical trip to America could not have come in a worse
week. And the President too pre-occupied for ceremonies looked glum
while swearing in the second-tier of ministers who were all trying hard
to appear smiling. That was Part Two of the cabinet reshuffle.
Disasters are no blessings, in disguise or otherwise. But the period
after a disaster provides the opportunity to get right things that went
wrong; and to stop going ahead with initiatives with identifiable
externalities, whose intended results are uncertain, and whose
unintended results could be harmful. The 2004 tsunami disaster presented
Sri Lanka the proverbial ‘tabula rasa’ (clean slate) for a fresh start,
as the late Fr. Dalton Forbes, the Oblate priest and professor at the
Catholic National Seminary in Ampitiya, wrote at that time in a
beautiful articulation of the religious understanding of the hand of God
and the resourcefulness of humans. The ‘clean slate’, Fr. Forbes had in
mind, was for a new political chapter. It was not to be for whatever
slate there was, was quickly broken up by the political tom-tom (PTOM)
beaters of the day.
Focus on basics, not fantasies
The 2017 flood disaster, to my mind, presents the opportunity for a
physical makeover of the country’s landscape and infrastructure, and
through the most rational method of doing it to have positive political
consequences at the national, provincial and local levels. But it is an
opportunity that the present government is not motivated or equipped to
seize on its own. Instead, it must be dragged, kicking and screaming, by
public opinion and pressure to do what is basic and necessary and not
something that is idiosyncratic and farfetched. After the flood affected
people are, as far as possible, relieved of their immediate
difficulties, the government’s focus must be on basic rebuilding and
restoration and not Megapolis fantasies.
It is not necessary to abandon the idea of urbanizing the Western
Province. Rather, the idea of state sponsored urbanization must be
thought through more thoroughly and its implementation must be
systematically broken into phases in terms of time and locations – i.e.
spread over manageable time and undertaken in consultation with the
different municipalities where developments will occur. Further, against
the backdrop of the Meetotamulla garbage mountain and with the
experience of the recent drought and current flood crises, urban
development in the Western Province and elsewhere must proceed from the
ground-up, and not top-down from the deceptively glittering heights of
condo-towers.
There is no point building towers for banking or luxury living without
checking infrastructure capacities to provide water and sanitary
services, address drainage impacts, manage garbage collection and
disposal, meet energy requirements, and accommodate traffic and parking.
Addressing drainage systematically and consistently could no longer be
ignored in the wake of the current disaster. Even the most elaborate
drainage system could be overwhelmed by a massive downpour. But at least
you will have some control over the runoff instead of having water
levels rising everywhere.
There are also economic and social concerns in the rapid development of
apartments and condominiums in Colombo and Greater Colombo areas.
Remarkably, the Governor of the Central Bank has raised concerns about
the over-heating of the apartment building sector, its credit-squeezing
effects, and its potential bubble-risks. Remarkably, as well, a major
‘development industry player’ has reportedly ‘rebuffed’ the Governor’s
concerns. In mature market societies, market leaders (except the Trumps
of the world, who on Thursday brought upon himself universal ridicule,
withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Change Accord, along with
Syria and Nicaragua) do not usually ‘cross words’ with their Central
Banks but take Banks’ opinions for their cautionary worth. Not so in
societies, where political connections matter more than market
fundamentals for business success. Specific to Sri Lanka, what should be
of concern is not only the danger of real estate speculation but also
the broader social relevance of an over-heated residential market in
Colombo.
Put another way, the Colombo, or greater Colombo, condominium market is
out of bounds to the vast majority of people living in Colombo, or the
Western Province. The Colombo market is also sustained by a
disproportionately large share of national resources to provide the
services the new developments will require. The Port City development,
or whatever it is fancifully called now, is a case in point, and a huge
one at that. As far as resource allocation goes, allocating resources to
service Colombo condominiums comes at the expense of the rest of the
country. As I have said many times in this column no government worthy
has responded to the JVP leader’s very pertinent question, that I
paraphrase again: if the government thinks Sri Lanka desperately needs a
financial centre, why not build it in the old Fort? That would be
economically more responsible and environmentally sustainable than the
Port City project.
But WHAT does Sri Lanka desperately need? That is the real question in
the wake of the flood disaster and the drought disaster that preceded
it, not to mention the huge hangover from the war disaster? How would a
financial centre in Colombo help the needs of the country? Bear in mind,
Sri Lanka is neither Singapore nor Dubai, socially, culturally, or
politically. And there is no economic certainty that, globally or
regionally, a third financial centre between Singapore and Dubai is
needed or would be viable, and that Sri Lanka is the god-chosen location
for it. What the country desperately needs is to heed the warnings of
recurring natural disasters and return to addressing its basic
infrastructure, hard and soft. That would also make a good deal of
economic sense. How is it to be done?
Devolution by validation
It is not only the Western Province that requires urbanization, but also
other provinces that need urban services for their cities and towns.
More importantly, all the provinces need proactive and preventive
measures for dealing with drought, floods and landslides. There is
enough information about flood-risk river basins and locations prone to
landslides. The NBRA puts out notices of warning about potentially
landslide locations. But how is the general public supposed to act on
these warnings? And what is the likelihood that everyone gets these
warnings, or the weather forecasts announced by the Meteorological
Department.
There was some exasperated ministerial musing that the Meteorological
Department might as well be closed because no one is heeding its
warnings. The answer is not in closing national institutions some of
which came into being long before our cabinet ministers were born. The
answer is in increasing their effectiveness by establishing
institutional connections between the national, provincial and local
levels of government.
For example, the national government would take the lead in designing
and implementing flood protection measures on flood-risk river basins,
while their maintenance and upkeep are best left to provincial
officials. All three levels of government will need to be involved in
mapping out floodplain and landslide areas, and in regulating and
controlling development activities in those locations. It would make
rational sense to adopt similarly hierarchical and co-ordinated
approaches in providing urban services – from water and sanitary, to
drainage, garbage and road building.
This is how things were, albeit in somewhat rudimentary form, during the
last years of colonial rule and the first years of independence. What
has got derailed since must be put back on track now. The political
consequence of involving the three levels government in basic rebuilding
and restoration would simply be the experiential validation of the
provincial and local levels of government. Such experiential validation
may prove to be more successful in silencing the critics of devolution
than all the attempts to achieve devolution through constitutional
texts. A purely constitutional exercise, without corresponding practical
validation, almost always favours its detractors rather than its
proponents.