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The Dalai Lama
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.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Indifference And Intolerance In A Disabling-State
June 2, 2012
By Tisaranee Gunasekara -
AC Grayling (Toward the Light of Liberty)
Will the corrosive Rajapaksa ethos prove to be a far more abiding yoke than even Rajapaksa rule?
Will Rajapaksa politico-administrative mores become transformed into governance-traditions, and thereby survive the eventual fall of the Rajapaksa regime?
Though partisan-politicisation of state entities began well before Rajapaksa Rule, the Lankan state always had key-niches which were immune to this malaise. But, as the Siblings intensify their efforts to impose their familial-seal on the Lankan state, these hitherto impregnable citadels are succumbing, one after another, with nary a ripple.
Until last month, the Governor of the Central Bank personified this degeneration of the pillars of the Lankan state into handmaidens of Familial Rule.
Now his position of pre-eminence is being challenged, by the Public Trustee.
According to JVP parliamentarian Sunil Handunetti, “the Public Trustee’s Department has paid Rs. 144,000 to ‘Sitha Stores’ for a suit for Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne to be worn during a visit to Vavuniya… (It) also spent Rs. 269,000 on books and clothes distributed during the tour” (Sri Lanka Mirror – 27.5.2012).
The Public Trustee is, well, the Public Trustee; the title says it all. Until the Rajapaksas unleashed their single-minded effort to annihilate the lines of demarcation between state and government and state and the Ruling Family, no political muck besmirched the Public Trustee’s Department. Now this hitherto august institution is becoming a petty-cash supplier for the rulers; “The auditor general has questioned the public trustee’s spending of Rs. 500,000 on a pandal to mark the president’s induction in office…” (ibid).
This latest development – and our collective-indifference to it – is indicative of the distance travelled by Sri Lanka since the commencement of Rajapaksa rule, less than seven years ago.
Will Rajapaksa politico-administrative mores become transformed into governance-traditions, and thereby survive the eventual fall of the Rajapaksa regime?
Though partisan-politicisation of state entities began well before Rajapaksa Rule, the Lankan state always had key-niches which were immune to this malaise. But, as the Siblings intensify their efforts to impose their familial-seal on the Lankan state, these hitherto impregnable citadels are succumbing, one after another, with nary a ripple.
Until last month, the Governor of the Central Bank personified this degeneration of the pillars of the Lankan state into handmaidens of Familial Rule.
Now his position of pre-eminence is being challenged, by the Public Trustee.
According to JVP parliamentarian Sunil Handunetti, “the Public Trustee’s Department has paid Rs. 144,000 to ‘Sitha Stores’ for a suit for Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne to be worn during a visit to Vavuniya… (It) also spent Rs. 269,000 on books and clothes distributed during the tour” (Sri Lanka Mirror – 27.5.2012).
The Public Trustee is, well, the Public Trustee; the title says it all. Until the Rajapaksas unleashed their single-minded effort to annihilate the lines of demarcation between state and government and state and the Ruling Family, no political muck besmirched the Public Trustee’s Department. Now this hitherto august institution is becoming a petty-cash supplier for the rulers; “The auditor general has questioned the public trustee’s spending of Rs. 500,000 on a pandal to mark the president’s induction in office…” (ibid).
This latest development – and our collective-indifference to it – is indicative of the distance travelled by Sri Lanka since the commencement of Rajapaksa rule, less than seven years ago.
