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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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Monday, November 30, 2020
28 November 2020
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, M A Sumanthiran highlighted the discrimination faced by Tamils in their right to remember those who gave their lives in the struggle for liberation, in a fiery exchange in the Sri Lankan parliament.
The lawmaker was questioned by Sarath Weerasekara who asked Sumanthiran how he could take an oath in Parliament after paying tribute to the LTTE's Captain Pandithar last week at the fighter's mother's home.
Responding to Weerasekara, Sumanitharan said:
"Yes, he was a LTTE leader. Nevertheless, he was her son. Every mother has the right to remember their children."
"The Honourable Minister has never rasied any questions with regard to the JVP remembering Rohana Wijeweera with his beret and regalia on the streets of Colombo. Even in the remembrance of the dead, there is discrimination against the Tamil people," he added.
Earlier this week, the TNA MP went to the home of Captain Pandithar's mother, Sinnathurai Maheswari,in Valvettithurai, where he lit a lamp to commemorate the fallen cadre, who was martyred in 1895.
"This is a mother's remembrance of her son. She was my client the previous day in court and I was required to explain to her she can commemorate her son in private in the house and I was there with her," Sumanthiran added.
Maheswari who had filed a petition at Jaffna High Court seeking an injunction not to attempt a ban on Maaveerar Naal commemoration events but the court dismissed the petition.
Weerasekara called Sumanthiran's explanation a "childish excuse" and claimed that "the mother can always respect the son, there is no problem but a parliamentarian cannot then go and pay tribute to a LTTE leader."
Weerasekara's comments come as Sri Lanka ramped up its intimidation and obstruction of Maaveerar Naal commemoration events. Whilst private commemorations were allowed, the Sri Lankan security forces carried out several raids, arrests and were heavily deployed across the North-East.
See our coverage of Maaveerar Naal here.
Writing The American Ceylon Mission: A Review Of The American River Of Love That Flowed Into Jaffna
By Mahendran Thiruvarangan –NOVEMBER 29, 2020
Dr. Mahendran Thiruvarangan
When cultures and faiths meet one another, there often crop up debates, dissonances and worse, even violent conflicts. But is that all we can say about such events that history unfurls time to time? Didn’t such moments of the past also include cultural fusions that make us who we are today? Aren’t we all carrying in our bodies, thoughts and practices of the present some of these blends made in the past? How do we narrate these histories that created simultaneously both ties that cut across linguistic, cultural and religious borders and violent hierarchies that organized our communities unequally? I found myself grappling with these questions when I was reading The American River of Love that Flowed into Jaffna, a book by Bishop Jebanesan launched recently in Jaffna.
This book narrates the story of a Protestant Christian missionary movement from the USA, known as the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), that arrived in nineteenth-century Jaffna and went on to fuse itself with the language and traditions of the local Tamils and contributed significantly towards the region’s progress in the areas of education and health care, whilst being involved in proselytizing the inhabitants of that region. The long voyages that the missionaries undertook amidst battering weather conditions, the emotional pain that confronted them following their separation from their families, the cultural and ecological challenges they faced in acclimatizing themselves to a new environment are all vividly described in the book.
Bishop Jebanesan’s book gives prominence to the missionaries’ attempts to educate the people of Jaffna, their concerns related to the education of the oppressed caste communities to whom education had been denied at the time, their keenness in educating the local women and their contribution to the health care of the people. The Bishop gives an overview of the activities the missionaries initiated and the schools and hospitals they inaugurated as a way of developing Jaffna. The author also highlights the interest shown by the missionaries in giving a central place to the Tamil language in the work they did. Tamil education, the missionaries held, was important to cultivate of a group of Tamil theologians who would take the gospel among the locals in a language that the latter understood.
Even though the primary objective of the missionaries was to spread Christianity, the book notes that missionaries like Hoisington engaged with Hindu philosophy in a scholarly manner and even translated some of the canonical philosophical texts associated with Hinduism into English. Hoisington’s interest and scholarship in Hindu Philosophy, Tamil literature and Tamil astrology suggests that the educational ambience that these missionaries nurtured in Jaffna was cosmopolitan in some ways and could not be indifferent to the religious worldview of the locals.
The book pays special attention to the missionaries’ contribution towards the creation of a book culture in Jaffna. The author writes in detail about the establishment of a printing press in Jaffna by the American missionaries, their role in inaugurating Uthayatharakai (the English version of the newspaper was known as The Morning Star), the first ever newspaper in Tamil to be published from Sri Lanka, the educational and religious texts that were produced and translated as part of this culture.
Bringing in anecdotes from his family archive, the Bishop writes about his great grandfather who initially resisted the missionaries’ attempt to preach the gospel to his sons but later embraced Christianity. In addition to the personal stories gleaned from the letters and communications that the missionaries wrote from Jaffna, the book includes stories about the missionaries that the author had heard from his mother and teachers at Jaffna College. It is noteworthy that this book, woven with several orally transmitted narratives, came out of an oral history initiative where the Bishop delivered a series of lectures on the American Ceylon Mission (ACM) via YouTube. In the book, the Bishop praises the missionaries with gratitude for the work they did to propagate Christianity and remembers them with love for their societal contribution.
In order to understand the social and religious roles the ACM played in nineteenth-century Jaffna holistically, its work needs to be reviewed from a postcolonial angle too. The cultural, religious and social work done by Christian missionaries in Asia and Africa during colonial times was often imbricated in the material processes and ideological apparatuses of colonialism. Although the American Missionaries were not interested in colonizing Jaffna, some of their views on the locals and their religious beliefs reek of orientalism, a process of knowledge production whereby, as Edward Said argues, colonizers and those associated with them portrayed the native populations and their beliefs as inferior to European ways of being and living. Samuel Green’s proclamation, “I’ll go to a land of darkness and heal the bodies and enlighten the minds of some error bound people,” suggests that the ACM’s outlook was not free of such orientalism.
One cannot assess the ABCFM’s activities in colonized locations like Jaffna without shedding light upon the political context of settler colonialism in the US where the group’s role in ‘civilizing’ the Native Americans has been called into question. The papers of the ABCFM composed when the group was working among the Cherokee people, a Native American community, reveal that its long-term purpose was to “gradually make the whole [Cherokee] tribe English in language, civilized in habits, and Christian in religion.” Gnimbin Albert Ouattara’s work on the ABCFM’s approach to Christianize the Cherokees holds that the group’s “civilizing strategy received a lot of support from the U.S. government and general public”.
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“Write a letter to India and leave Indo-Lanka agreement, if you dare” – Sumanthiran challenges Sri Lanka FM
29/11/2020
The Minister of Foreign Affairs is an experienced parliamentarian and able person and I’m glad to discuss a few matters with regard to Sri Lanka’s foreign policy while he is present together with also a very able and dynamic young parliamentarian, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.
Comical drama
It was rather comical to witness the spectacle this morning as we started the debate – the bickering between the government benches and the main opposition each trying to absolve themselves from responsibilities they had undertaken in the international arena.
Honourable Lakshman Kiriella blaming President Mahinda Rajapaksa, for agreeing with the Secretary General of the UN on the 26th of May 2009 in Kandy, undertaking to inquire into the allegations of human rights violations. And for his part, the Honorable Minister blaming the main opposition when they were in office for co-sponsoring resolution HRC 30/1
before the UN Human Rights Council.
A letter to UNHRC
These acts are not acts of certain governments that are in the office at a particular point in time, these undertakings are given on behalf of the state and in the international system, these obligations are taken very seriously. The Minister read out the letter sent in February this year claiming to withdraw from the co-sponsorship of resolution HRC 30/1. All of us know that you can’t withdraw from an act that is already done. The Minister was heard to say in this House that that co-sponsorship happened without the knowledge of anyone not even the President of that time.
I want to ask a question: if that be so, how did Sri Lanka co-sponsor resolution 34/1 and 40/1 several months thereafter both of which were merely roll-over resolutions of 30/1. 30/1 was done on the 1 st of October 2015. 34/1 was in March 2017 and 40/1 was in March 2019. Three times over! same contents and how does a responsible Minister stand up here and say nobody knew about the contents.
These undertakings are on behalf of Sri Lanka. Of the state! There are serious repercussions if you resile from international commitments.
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Indo – Lanka Accord
I want to post another question: on the 29th of July 1987, Sri Lanka entered into an international bilateral agreement with India, commonly known as the Indo – Lanka Accord.
Various speakers in this House at various times will say various things about this agreement.
Mr. Foreign Minister, would you have the courage to write a letter to India like you did to the UN Human Rights Council and withdraw from the Indo- Lanka Accord? If you don’t and if you haven’t done that over several decades of your party in office, you must honour it. No point saying this was thrust down our throat; if it was thrust down your throat withdraw – write a letter to India like you did to the UN Human Rights Council. Are you brave enough to do that? if you don’t, I will read out the fundamental principles of the Indo-Lanka accord which is still binding on Sri Lanka.
It is an international bilateral agreement: first, Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society, two, each ethnic group has a distinct cultural and linguistic identity which has to be carefully nurtured. And three, the Northern and the Eastern provinces have been areas of historical habitation of Sri Lankan Tamil speaking peoples.
Basic principles laid down at the forefront of the Indo-Lanka Accord. You can’t resile from that, nor can you even resile from undertakings given to the UN Human Rights Council – not once, but three times. But more importantly, what President Rajapakse did. Before President Rajapakse did that in May 2009, on the 02nd of March 2009 honourable Mahinda Samarasinghe on behalf of Sri Lanka said this at the UN Human Rights Council.
Mahinda Rajapaksa position
He says: “Our National discourse has been dominated for decades by an ethnic issue which requires a political solution as a means to resolve the problem”, he didn’t say a military solution, he said it requires a political solution. “On a recommendation of the all-party representative committee, we are able to properly implement the 13th amendment to the constitution which was passed in 1987”.
Words of your government’s Minister at that time, and following that on the 26th of May, this is what President Mahinda Rajapakse said in the joint communique with the UN Secretary General. President Rajapakse expressed his firm resolve to proceed with the implementation of the 13th amendment, as well as to begin a broader dialogue with all parties including the Tamil parties in the new circumstances to further enhance this process and to bring about lasting peace and development in Sri Lanka.
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Now, why did he do that? Will you write a letter to the UN Secretary General withdrawing from this commitment, that your President did this on the 26th of May 2009? He said this, not only the implementation of the 13th amendment. 11 years have passed and it has not been implemented, your solemn promise, your leader’s solemn promise to the Secretary General of the UN, no less! I am saying this because there are repercussions if you don’t deliver on your promises to the international community. You pride yourself that we are a part of the civilized community of nations. We will not be part of the civilized community
of nations if we willy-nilly ignore and violate commitments we make to the international community.
And the very next day, on the 27th of May 2009, the day after President Mahinda Rajapakse agreed. I am bot only referring to his guarantee of implementation of the 13th amendment and going beyond that. There are other agreements in that with regard to violations of Human Rights.
Where is it?
In your letter in February this year too you say there’ll be a domestic mechanism. Where is it? Several months have passed, Where is that? Where is that plan?
For 11 years you fooled the world now for 11 months or so you have fooled the world or you think that you can fool all the people all the time.
That’s what you think because the very next day at the UN Human Rights Council a resolution was adopted which said “welcoming also the recent assurance given by the President of Sri Lanka”, the previous day he gave that assurance, “welcoming also the recent assurance given by the President of Sri Lanka, that he does not regard a military solution as a final solution as well as his commitment to a political solution with the implementation of the 13th amendment to bring about lasting peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.”
So 13th amendment implementation was the first step, that was promised for over and over and over again, not just to the UN human rights council but to India and I am going to read the three joint communicates that were issued once with Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh where President Mahinda Rajapakse’s commitment was recorded.
The Prime Minister emphasized that a meaningful devolution package, this was in June 2010, 10 years have passed, building upon the 13th amendment that’s what honourable Mahinda Rajapakse said:
“The president of Sri Lanka reiterated his determination to evolve a political settlement acceptable to all communities that would act as a catalyst to create necessary conditions in which all the people of Sri Lanka could lead their lives in an atmosphere of Peace, Justice and dignity. Consistent with democracy pluralism, equal opportunity and respect for human rights.”
Towards this saying the President expressed his resolve to continue to implement in particular the relevant provisions of the constitution designed to strengthen national amity, and reconciliation through empowerment in this context he shared his ideas
on conducting a broader dialogue with all parties involved. The Prime minister of India expressed India’s constructive support for efforts that build peace and reconciliation among all communities in Sri Lanka.
Now, this was followed when then external affairs Minister prof. G.L. Peiris visited New Delhi in May 2011, in a joint press statement, I am glad that Prof. Peiris is in the house when I quote it.
Promises made o India
“The external affairs minister of Sri Lanka affirmed its government’s commitment to ensuring expeditious and concrete progress in the ongoing dialogue between the government of Sri Lanka and representatives of the Tamil parties. A devolution package “building upon the 13th amendment” words of assurance given by Prof. Peiris, to India.
Building upon the 13th amendment would contribute towards creating a necessary condition for such reconciliation again reiterated in January 2012 when external affairs minister S. M. Krishna visited Sri Lanka and with Prof. Peiris by his side this is what he said “The Government of Sri Lanka has on many occasions conveyed to us its commitment to move towards a political settlement based on the full implementation of the 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution and building on it so as to achieve meaningful devolution of powers, we look forward to an expeditious and constructive approach to the dialogue process.”
A decade has passed. You haven’t done a thing, some efforts were taken at the last government. We participated in good faith, members who are now in the government also participated the Honourable minister of foreign affairs was a member of the steering committee, Honourable Susil Premajayanth even headed an ad-hoc committee, with regard to the relations between the Parliament and the provincial councils and gave a good report. Honourable Bandula Gunawardene chaired another committee, Honourable Mahinda Samarasinghe chaired another committee on Human rights or fundamental rights and gave a brilliant report, Honourable Dr. Wijedasa Rajapakse who hides behind his lamp all the time here in this house in these sessions was also a member of the steering committee and drafted the proposals with regard to the land powers. So there was an effort, but that you have abandon now.
Yes state minister, thank you, thank you for that assurance that you will abide by all the assurances given to the world.
Right to Remember
This is the month of November in which I said this some time ago also, all those who died in wars are remembered. That is why we sell poppy the world over this is the period in which it happens, and in Sri Lanka particularly in the Tamil areas for the last 3 decades it has become a custom to remember the dead who fought the war, they may have fought the state but nevertheless, they are dead and their families and others have a right to remember them as they are accustomed to do.
The government has taken great exception to this now suddenly this year and is flying members of the Attorney General’s Department by a special helicopter to Jaffna, to Mullaitivu – to all over the place amid covid restrictions when the attorney generals department is in the isolation zone, they are flying around all over without being quarantined to oppose and to obtain orders from the magistrates preventing mothers, fathers, sisters brothers remembering the dead. Most unfortunate, most undignified act by the stat. Honouring the dead, remembering the dead is even in our culture a solemn affair.
Stroy of a mother, 83 years old
The other day I stood with a mother, 83 years old, she has only a shack for a house, her son died in 1985, and as she lit her lamp, I participated in that event, a solemn occasion. Why are you so worried, why are you so scared of the dead? Is it because you put them to death in the most brutal manner violating all the international norms? The other thing is sovereignty is for all people. Sovereignty is not to be enjoyed by the majority only, and that must be kept in mind If the majority only enjoys sovereignty then you are leaving the other peoples out. You are forcing them to claim their own sovereignty and that would be
your own act.
The foreign minister when he started, said he wants to give a lesson to Honourable Lakshman Kiriella about the fact that India is a Union because they had princely states and they had to be brought together, I want to ask him about the history of this Island, when the Europeans conquered this Island was there one state here? Was there one kingdom in this Island? No, there wasn’t one kingdom in this Island, there were three kingdoms in this Island, and they all fell to Western powers at different times. It was only in 1833, consequent to Colebrook-Cameron commission report, for administrative convenience it was made one country, so you must remember when you try to take lessons on how India became a Union or how the United States of America became states coming together remember the history of this country as well. This country consists of different peoples who each have their own right in International Law; violation of International law is not a domestic matter.
The cloak of sovereignty
You can’t hide behind the cloak of sovereignty, state sovereignty. There’s nothing called state sovereignty today; sovereignty is to be enjoyed by the people. You can’t hide behind the concept of state sovereignty and violate international law and claim that it is a domestic matter. You know that very well. So fashioning the country’s foreign policy you have now gone on reverse gear; you have put the country at peril and on this particular occasion when we debate the votes on the foreign ministry I think it is our duty to bring it to your notice that you need to turnaround. And promoting accountability and reconciliation is not a matter that violates the sovereignty of any country.
Adopted from the TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran’s Speech on the 25 th of November 2020 on the voting of budget for the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
A year into Rajapaksa presidency amidst Covid-19 pandemic
The Rajapaksa administration completed its first year in office, a few days ago, with Sri Lanka being in the midst of a raging Covid-19 second wave, which has seen confirmed cases of the virus in the country, pass the 20,000 mark, with the highly populated and economically crucial Western Province, being the new epicentre.
Twelve months, since the historic and momentous victory of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and its presidential candidate, have passed quickly. With a year that was dominated by the twenty first century’s first global pandemic, to perhaps the Spanish flu about a century ago. Sri Lanka dealt with the first wave earlier this year, relatively successfully with few infections and single digit Covid-19 related deaths. The newly installed SLPP / Rajapaksa Administration claimed credit for an efficient epidemic management and possibly reaped some political benefit from the same, winning an unexpected and massive two-thirds majority in the general elections to parliament in August this year. Surpassing the seat tally received by a prior Rajapaksa Administration, under the UPFA banner, in the post war euphoria, elections of 2010. Quite a credit then to the current Rajapaksa administration, for surpassing itself.
However, the political year 2019/20, was not without its significant events, which will shape Sri Lankan national life for the next few years. First, it is the absolute implosion of the United National Party and the emergence of young Sajith Premadasa as both the credible runner-up in the presidential race and the new Leader of the Opposition. Replacing long serving UNP leader and former Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose refusal to concede defeat in his internal political battle with his erstwhile deputy, has resulted in the weakest political opposition in a decade, seriously weakening the checks and balances so essential in a democratic society. But a political transition has taken place, in both government and Opposition from Mahinda to Gotabaya and Ranil to Sajith.
Militarization of civilian space and centralization of political power
Probably, the most defining aspect of the current Rajapaksa administration is the militarisation of civilian space in public administration and governance. While Prime Minister and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa ascended to the apex of national governance through the democratic political process, the path which brought younger sibling and current President Gotabaya Rajapakas to power, lay through a career in the military, culminating in the highest office in the Ministry of Defence. Accordingly, governance under the current Rajapaksa administration has been dominated by the military, either serving or retired. The Covid-19 public health emergency has been placed under the serving Army Commander, rather than the Health Minister or the Health Ministry. Accordingly, there has been criticism of a reduction in health expenditure, lack of any increase in hospital bed capacity and Sri Lanka’s relatively low rate of Covid-19 testing.
Most of the high official positions in the administration including foreign affairs, health, ports and customs among others are occupied by retired or serving senior military men, competent undoubtedly, but not from the civilian Sri Lanka Administrative Service. Other key government functions seem to be allocated to presidential tasks forces, headed and dominated by military and security personnel, rather than relevant line ministries. Accordingly, such objectives as the Eastern Province archeological site preservation and the creation of a disciplined and virtuous society have been entrusted to military task forces.
The centralisation of political power in the executive presidency through the recently enacted 20th Amendment to the Constitution, mostly rolls back the modest democratic gains associated with the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, and once again establishes Sri Lanka’s executive president as an elected absolute ruler. The administration required the help and support of some breakaway Opposition Muslim MPs to manage and mitigate its own internal dissent on the 20th Amendment.
A Covid-19 influenced economic meltdown
A significant factor in the single term demise of the Sirisena / Wickremesinghe Administration and the return to power of the Rajapaksas was likely the dismal governance performance, the anaemic economic growth and the absence of a peace dividend during the 2015 to 2019 period. Recognising this and that generally good economics is always good politics; the Rajapaksa administration has been keen to try and up its economic management game. This attempt has been seriously stymied by the Covid-19 pandemic and the effect of the lockdowns and the airport shutdown on the tourism and general services sectors. We are headed for a recession in excess of perhaps negative five percent (-5%), though we would have to await the Central Bank reports for the exact figure. The administration doesn’t really seem to have an answer to the serious economic challenges ahead, with their first budget earlier this month, seemingly more wishful than realistic or pragmatic.
A serious foreign policy tilt to China
Also, in the area of foreign policy, Sri Lanka’s decades long and carefully crafted non-aligned and neutral foreign policy, which followed a balance between the competing interests of major powers in the region, including of India, seems to have been jettisoned in favour of a serious pivot towards China, notwithstanding government lip service to the contrary. This is unwise and weakens key relationships with our largest trading partner the United States and, of course, our historical and huge sub continental neighbour India, to the detriment of our own national interests.
The first year of the new Rajapaksa administration would draw mixed reviews, dominated as it has been by the Covid-19 pandemic and its management, but pursuing and implementing policies, which avoid serious scrutiny and debate, precisely because of the pandemic. But those policies and their effects will be keenly felt and should be more closely examined later on in the administration’s term of office.
(The writer served as Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2016-2017)
Covid-19: The Epidemic & The Economy
By Rajan Philips –NOVEMBER 29, 2020
Rajan Philips
“What I have learned about pandemics is you have to be very humble. There is no mission-accomplished moment.” ~ Dr. Vin-Kim Nguyen
Perhaps every medical professional would agree with the sentiment in the above comment by a Vietnamese Canadian Doctor, who is affiliated to two international hospitals, one in Montreal, Canada, and the other in Geneva, Switzerland. Unlike Doctors who would give you the unvarnished truth, governments and politicians generally have different arrangements with truth and humility. Lack of humility and premature celebrations of victory are all too common in government and politics in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. The country seems to be now paying the price for the government’s premature declaration of victory over Covid-19 and prodigal distractions thereafter – changing the constitution just for the heck of it and changing the heck out of the positions of doctors in public health agencies. The infection total is now past 21,000 and the death toll is reaching 100. A sevenfold increase in both in just over seven weeks. What is worrisome, apart from the rate of increases, is the absence of any indication that the government is in control and is able to arrest the trend, let alone reverse it.
Sri Lankan numbers are still pea nuts in the global context. At Sri Lanka’s rates, the US should have under 400,000 infections and 2,000 deaths. But the superpower has a staggering 13 million infections and over a quarter million deaths. But the finally-on-his- way-out Donald Trump, after singlehandedly leading America to become the super spreader of the coronavirus, maniacally believes that but for his brilliant stewardship tens of millions of more Americans would be infected by now and a million of them would have died. Americans have managed to get rid of Trump, thanks to their unsung heroes who faithfully counted nearly 160 million votes in the most contentious of situations and the judges who boldly rebuked and threw out every one of Trump’s vexatious pseudo-legal challenges. But America is stuck with the coronavirus which is still spreading in its deadly mutation. And vaccines, though the result of globally coordinated scientific efforts at the highest level, are not going to be overnight panaceas. Again, every medical professional is saying that.
Logistically, there are several hoops to pass through even after one or more of the three lead vaccine candidates are approved for use. Their mass production, storage and transport are all huge challenges, which can be done but not in any hurry. And worldwide vaccination thereafter will be an unprecedented health intervention on a global scale. Then come the challenges of keeping records for multiple inoculation, verifying vaccine effectiveness, and tracking virus transmission after vaccination by pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers. According to experts the now ongoing clinical trials alone are not sufficient to be conclusive about any of this, given the speed at which vaccine development is necessarily being undertaken. The consensus upshot is that masks and physical distancing cannot be dispensed with easily or quickly even after vaccination programs get underway in different countries. All of this would invariably lead to delaying the resumption of economic activity to pre-pandemic levels. Sri Lanka is not alone in this, but there are many things that individual countries will have to do themselves on their own.
From Infection to Recession
Last week I referred to Dr. Tissa Vitarana’s statement on “Community action can end the Covid-19 pandemic,” where he very simply explains the basic facts about the virus, its current level of transmission in Sri Lanka, the difficulties Sri Lanka will face in obtaining a vaccine for the entire population within a short-time frame, and calls for “community action” to end the pandemic. He calls the current mode of transmission, “uncontrolled community spread.” He suggests there could be 80% asymptomatic transmission and cites a figure of 30% test positivity from a random PCR study in Colombo by the CMOH. He fears that waiting for the vaccine to control the virus could be a “distant dream.” The reason is that apart from logistical delays, Sri Lanka should be in a position to buy the available vaccine for 60% of the population in addition to the expected WHO’s free vaccine for 20% of the population, to vaccinate 80% of the population – the threshold “to break the chain of transmission in a population.”
Until then, it is “community action” that should be relied upon, along with public health infrastructure and a knowledgeable population observing basic health practices, to contain the community spread of the virus. Dr. Vitarana is confident that “if a good example is set from the top (no large gatherings etc.) and the people follow the health guidelines, the country can get rid of the Covid-19 scourge.”
In fairness to Dr. Vitarana, he is not asking to be in charge of this community action plan, and he is confident in the abilities of doctors in the Epidemiology Unit and of the armed forces for tracking and tracing. And if Dr. Vitarana is just a retired professional without political involvement, no one would be suggesting that he should be recalled from retirement to head this or that coronavirus task force. The only reason that some of us are puzzled about his apparent exclusion, is that he has been so much a part of the PA/UPFA/ULF/SLFP/SLPP governing political formation for twenty six years – all the way back from 1994, when some of the current bigwigs were in and out of the country and would not have known the difference between a parliamentary system and a presidential system.
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Anxieties of a nation and the anxieties of capital
The Budget of 2021:Pre-COVID preoccupations
30 November 2020
The budget comes at a critical time. It is the first budget in the time of the current President and the government that was voted in August 2020, and also the budget that spells out the government’s programme in the days of the COVID and after.
Many groups and critics have pointed out that the budget has not provided for the people, their safety and survival. The provisions have little to say about catering to middle-class white-collar workers either. Education, one of the cornerstones of any budget proposal, is indifferently treated; the substantial education programme is seen as one of technology, modality, and not one of substance. It has sidestepped safety and health concerns of children and staff. Instead, they are treated as expendable commodities.
The hardest hit by COVID 19 are the working people. The first wave brought a lot of concern for those without work and rendered destitute, but the scale of disempowerment in the second wave has left all concerned aghast and helpless. An editorial of Daily Mirror has the trade union leader Linus Jayatilleke quoting astounding figures of people who had been furloughed, stranded, and left out in the cold. (dailymirror.lk/opinion/Covid-budget-and-the-common-man-EDITORIAL/172-2).
In not attending to the urgency of the situation in its budget proposals, the government has demonstrated how disengaged it is from the political realities of class.
A close study of the preamble by the Prime Minister shows that the proposals and expenditure are built around an unrealistic projection of economic growth for next year, giving one the impression that the budget was drawn up in pre-COVID times; totally unheeding of the realities of COVID 19 and our future after it. As the Collective for Economic Democracy says: economic projection in the years to come would be negative growth not just in Sri Lanka, but for most of the world. Yet, the government proposes a few meagre relief measures thrown in here and there, less than inadequate, and not in areas where they are most needed, such as food, health, safety, and security of work. Instead of conserving the strengths of the country’s resources, such as land, agriculture, fisheries and supporting the labour of the people, the government’s budget focuses on construction, investment and digitalization of education, all of which are under great strain and designed to further distance people from the centres of power and the capitalist classes. (http://www.ft.lk/business/Budget-2021-Economic-depression-and-the-Government-s-empty-response/34-709256. Thousands go out of work, in the organized informal sectors in urban areas. With exports and investments down, and with tourism grinding to a standstill, the informal sectors in the urban areas are going to be at the receiving end of the calamity that is waiting around the corner. Yet, the government proposes investments, construction, mega, major and minor, consumption, and entrepreneurship.
The Gender of Budget 2021
Let’s turn to the budget’s “gender”. A close read and an economic analysis of the disempowerment of women and women’s labour in the budget is a must. But even as we do it, we may want to look at the ideological framework of the budget. Entrepreneurship is understood as a panacea for the ills of the economic downslide. Unlike mega construction, entrepreneurship here alludes to the empowerment of the youth; a twin programme of spending that the country needs to revive economic activity, and a building of the economy of the people, through production.
The terms on which entrepreneurship is offered to the youth is through an individualised loan scheme. The fact that entrepreneurship is offered to the youth at a time entrepreneurship itself is under stress, points to one, that the government has no thought-out plan for the rebuilding of the economy in the hinterland of the country and outside the big urban centres, and two, that entrepreneurship at the expense of planning will lead people, as it has done in the past, to exorbitant levels of indebtedness.
The budget misrecognizes women’s labour as youth entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship, where it has concerned women and targeted women, outside of commercial and bourgeois settings, had been about coaxing women on the peripheries into a market economy (entrepreneurship) that was already fragile. Entrepreneurship has at best remained small and heavily subsidised either by the government or NGOs; by and large, economically unviable. Sulari de Silva’s ongoing work on the weaving industries and entrepreneurship reveals that it is the labour of the crafts-people, largely women, that has been integrated into the peripheries of a capitalist economy, and not entrepreneurship (Dumbara Weaving; The Production of Craft Textiles in the Capitalist Periphery). To me she says, “with no yarn available now, the major outlets that commission and buy these products on a daily wage basis, or a product basis, have stopped their orders.” It seems that among the returning people to the upcountry from the cities, thrown out of work, women are the ones who are finding it most difficult to eke out a living. Entrepreneurship is not one wants at a time of austerity, but care, security, and welfare provisions.
Proposing entrepreneurship as an antidote to employment within a set up where employment opportunities are shrinking is a fraudulent move. Further, in not providing for the large numbers of women and men, who have been thrown out of work, entrepreneurship becomes a camouflage for the failure of this budget proposal to even begin to understand the problem. The framework in which youth and entrepreneurship are brought together is designed to increase indebtedness, among the people. Instead of providing the much-needed relief and security to working people and those thrown out of work, the government is offering loans on interest where they are not viable.
"In not attending to the urgency of the situation in its budget proposals, the government has demonstrated how disengaged it is from the political realities of class"
Ideologically, entrepreneurship built around loans is presented as a seeming alternative to labour. Here, I decidedly read labour as the labour of women: a disproportionate and increasing disenfranchisement of women’s labour in the exigencies of COVID 19. In the north and east, and among Tamil and Muslim women, indebtedness, the scandal of microfinance, and payment commitments toward a house in the numerous housing schemes at hand, has had women in a stranglehold, struggling with families and social cohesion. Activists working with women’s groups, co-operatives and thrift societies tell me that with increasing dislocation of labour, and security, like lack of a house, and the lack of work for men and women alike, women’s activism around the class and economic concerns are taking centre stage. Yet, there is no recognition of the siege that women are in today and the strength that women have demonstrated all these years in times of adversity.
Vistas of Splendour and Prosperity: Is the government losing the plot?
The budget proposals are formulated and trapped within a Neo-Liberal mindset. Women’s lobbies, women’s movement and economic analyses have to look sharply at the ideological currents that inform all policy and have an engaged response to economic programmes; in which the concerns, perspectives and strengths garnered from women’s work provide the basis for analysis and not a middle-class normativity, built on assessments of individual women’s rate of success and failure. Budget 2021 arriving at this critical moment of women’s history should alert us to how we may proceed.
The lie that the promise of entrepreneurship is, therein lies the erasure of women’s labour, men’s labour and labour as a whole. In short, a class analysis. Anxious masculinity and a nervous nation lurk within the folds of this slippage. We have to resuscitate a class analysis of gender and a gendered approach to class, that is also attendant to the genders of the nation. As women’s groups push forward with their challenge, they may need to redraw the contours of their activism.
A child’s guide to fiscal literacy: Low literacy at all levels is the curse
Monday, 30 November 2020
People’s representatives lose their thinking power and conscience when they join a political party. They have to support the party line even when that party line is wrong. Hence, they are like programmed robots who will just say what the
programmer has asked them to say. That is why there is no informed and intelligent debate of the budget by people’s representatives
Aseni, the Wiz Kid, has been puzzled by
different ways in which
different parties had
commented on the
Budget 2021
presented in Parliament two weeks ago. Some had hailed it as a
development budget, some had scathed it for not giving relief to people, some had found fault with it for not
addressing the problems they are facing, and so on. Aseni, as she had done on previous
occasions, turned to her Grandpa, Sarath
Mahattaya, an
ex-employee of the Ministry of Finance, for guidance. The following is the conversation that took place between the two of them:
Aseni: Grandpa, I have watched the budget debate live in Parliament. What I noted was that those on the Government side did not see any fault in the budget, whereas to those in the opposition everything was wrong in the budget. Why should this happen? Has the budget polarised the people’s representatives into two groups?
Sarath: It is something that you have to expect in a party system. People’s representatives lose their thinking power and conscience when they join a political party. They have to support the party line even when that party line is wrong. Hence, they are like programmed robots who will just say what the programmer has asked them to say. That is why there is no informed and intelligent debate of the budget by people’s representatives.
Aseni: Grandpa, was it the same always? Wasn’t there any occasion in the past where there was an informed debate of the budget?
Sarath: No, there had been occasions when some of the people’s representatives made good contributions to budget debates. They were all independent representatives not belonging to any political party. They could look at a budget with a critical approach because they were not subject to the deficiency which members of political parties were having. But, overall, all budget debates in the entirety of the post-independence era were partial, uninformed, and demonstrative of lack of knowledge known as budget literacy.
But there was an exception in Budget 2021. There was one member in the Government party who does not hold a portfolio making a sound representation. In the opposition, there were two such members who made a good contribution. Even then, they mostly found fault with budgetary numbers and did not go into an analysis of how the budgetary framework in Sri Lanka should be redesigned deliver sustained economic growth in the long-run.
Aseni: Grandpa, I can understand it. But private sector entities like Chambers too had only a good opinion about the Budget 2021 as if they too belong to the political party in power. All of them including the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce had praised the Budget 2021 as a development budget. Isn’t it odd?
Sarath: That can happen due to two reasons. One could be that their budget literacy may be very low. The other is the self-interest. They praise the budget to earn favours from the government in power. They had been playing this game throughout, whatever the government in power. When they claim that the budget is a development budget, they should come up with reasons for making that judgment. It is not proper for anyone to claim a particular budget a development budget without making an appropriate analysis.
Aseni: Is there any set of rules which we can use to classify a particular budget a development budget or not?
Sarath: Yes, indeed. But they also change depending on the state of the economy and the aspirations which a nation has about its future considering the global developments and where its peers are now. What this means is that the criteria that we had used, say, 10 years ago, are not relevant and valid for deciding the state of the budget today. That is because the context that we use today is different from the context that had been there 10 years ago.
Aseni: Wow, what it means is that we have to keep us updated continuously if we are to be literate in fiscal terms. But how should we decide whether the Budget 2021 is a development budget or not?
Sarath: The way to do is to identify our immediate and medium to long-term development issues and examine how far Budget 2021 has addressed them. If it has done so, we can say that it is a development budget. If it has failed, then, to say that it is a development budget is simply making a superficial statement.
Aseni: So, it is a complicated matter. What are our immediate development issues, Grandpa?
Sarath: One is a recurring issue ever since we were independent from Britain. Economic development requires us to invest a large portion of our income in productive assets. What I mean by productive is that those investments should generate an output in a bigger volume, not for just one or two years but for a long period. To invest, we need resources and one way to find those resources is to save a sufficient amount out of our income by cutting down our consumption. It is a hard choice, but we have to make that choice.
Sri Lankans are notorious savers because out of Rs. 100 they earn, on average, they save only about Rs. 25. The track record of the Sri Lankan Government in making savings is the worst. That is because it spends more than its income on consumption. This situation is called making dis-savings and historically, those dis-savings had been about 2% of our total income known as Gross Domestic Product or GDP. Therefore, the Government is an eater of private savings. That is because it reduces the
national savings to that extent. To initiate development, the country has to reverse it.
Therefore, to get the qualification that the budget is a development budget, the Government should have cut its consumption or increase income or both, generate savings and use those savings for investment in productive assets which have been very carefully selected based on the country’s priorities. This has not happened in Budget 2021. In 2020, the Government’s dis-savings have been as high as 8% of GDP. In 2021, since the revenue has been overestimated, the dis-savings will be in the same region. Hence, the Budget 2021 is not a development budget but a consumption budget.
Aseni: But why haven’t people realised it?
Sarath: Mainly due to their own selfishness and myopic or short-sighted attitude. When the Government spends on consumption, a part of that money goes into their hands. They get into the false feeling of becoming richer than before. Hence, they expect the Government to spend more on consumption. That is myopic because they pay in the long run in several ways. One is that it impedes development and people have to settle themselves for a low improvement in welfare. Another is that they have to pay taxes at higher levels to finance the Government’s over-consumption. A third is some adversity which people do not understand immediately. That is, if the Government is planning to finance such high consumption by printing money, the consequential inflation – known as imposing an inflation tax – will reduce the quantity of real goods and services which they can consume. Therefore, they do not see the future but see only today.
Aseni: But Chambers also have not realised it. Surely, they have access to better economic knowledge than ordinary folk, haven’t they?
Sarath: Yes, they have. But they are extremely selfish. They do not want to run the wrath of the Government and disqualify themselves for various facilities the Government is offering. For example, the construction sector chamber will praise the budget because if it criticises it, its members may not get construction contracts. You would have noted that that chamber had branded the budget as construction sector friendly, though the budget had clearly pronounced that all contracts relating to the Government sector would be given to state construction sector entities.
Aseni: Are there any other immediate developmental issues faced by Sri Lanka which have not been addressed in the budget?
Sarath: One prominent issue is country’s foreign debt problem. We do not have enough foreign exchange with us to repay the principal and pay interest on foreign debt. A classic case is that in the next 12-month period, we should have at least $ 6.7 billion to repay the principal and pay interest on foreign borrowings of both the Government and the private sector. But our liquid foreign exchange resources have declined to a level of just $ 5.4 billion meaning that we have to either default or borrow more to honour our debt obligations. This Government is not responsible for it because it is a legacy which it has inherited from previous governments. Yet, since it is in their court now, they have to come up with a solution.
This budget has not given a satisfactory answer to it and our chambers have failed to notice it. Their members have to pay dearly if they have to default due to the lack of foreign exchange to meet their debt obligation. Individual country debt crises have been triggered in the past, such as those in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Greece, and Portugal, by the default of the private loans. The risk which we face today is that the private sector has rupees, but the country does not have dollars to give them to pay their foreign debt. A debt crisis can occur not because of the Government debt per se. It can be triggered by the country’s private sector and then spread to the Government sector.
Aseni: This is a critical issue. And an issue that should not be ignored. But what are the medium to
long-term issues that have to be used when assessing Budget 2021?
Sarath: Sri Lanka’s goal has been to become a rich country within a generation ever since it gained independence from Britain. The first Finance Minister of independent Ceylon, J.R. Jayewardene, named his budgets as ‘Budgets of Full Employment’ meaning gaining a high growth rate to elevate the country to that status. But that goal has been an elusive goal and even after 72 years of independence, we have not reached the full employment level. But we have a different problem now. That is, the country got itself elevated to the status of a lower middle-income country in 1997 and we have not been able to become even a higher middle-income country as yet. We are at the threshold and we do not know when we will be able to cross that threshold.
But the problem is the crossing of the higher middle-income country upper limit and becoming a rich country. This problem is known as the ‘Middle-Income Trap’ and there should be a clearly laid road map to beat the trap. This is the most critical problem that we are facing today and there is no mention of this problem in the Budget 2021.
Aseni: Amazing that it has missed the eye of the policy makers. But what should Sri Lanka do to beat the middle-income trap?
Sarath: To understand it, we must go a little back to history. It is relatively easy for a low income or a poor country to become a lower middle-income country. That is because those poor countries have abundant labour at low prices and therefore can increase its per capita income by producing mass consumption goods for rich countries by using that cheap labour. This is what Sri Lanka did in 1980s and 1990s by concentrating on developing its apparel sector. But after you reach the middle-income level, you start experiencing increases in wages making your production uncompetitive compared to the new entrants to your line of production.
So, in the apparel sector, we cannot compete with Bangladesh, Myanmar and Cambodia which have entered the market recently. So, as a middle-income country, we lose that market. Then, we cannot become a rich country either because we cannot compete with rich countries due to a lack of advanced technologies. So, we are eternally caught in the middle-income level. If the Budget 2021 is to be categorised as a development budget as claimed by many, it has to lay foundation now to address this issue. That is not being done in the present budget.
Aseni: I understand it. But some have criticised the budget on the ground that it has not provided relief to common man by reducing prices. Even the people’s representatives in the opposition had raised this issue. How far is it justified? Can a government reduce prices?
Sarath: This is another myth that has been engrained in the mindset of people. Government can increase prices by printing money and causing inflation in the economy. But they cannot reduce prices. This is because prices are determined in the market in response to the interaction of two opposing forces. One is the demand force and the other is the supply force. The Government can influence neither one. Suppose to reduce prices, it cuts taxes on commodities. Suppliers are now in a position to supply the given commodity at a price lower than the prevailing market price. But whether the prices would come down in the market will depend on what has happened to the demand. But if the demand increases because the Government has printed money to finance the budget and release that money into the hands of people, the demand will increase, nullifying the attempt of suppliers in reducing prices.
This was exactly what happened in the previous instances in which the Government had cut import duties to lower market prices. They did not generate the expected price reductions because people’s money incomes had been increased by financing the budgets by printing money. But this example tells us that the governments can increase prices by printing money and financing budget deficits. In that case, the demand will increase, and it will lead to an increase in the market prices too.
Aseni: But why do people expect the Government to reduce prices?
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