“Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation
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In December 1998, Fidel Castro addressed the 7th Congress of the Young Communist League in Havana, Cuba, a year after the catastrophic ‘market failure’ in Asia, when global finance exited the region and left behind economic deserts stretching from Korea to Malaysia. ‘The world is rapidly being globalised’, Castro told the Cuban youth, and this globalisation was ‘an unsustainable and intolerable world economic order’ founded on the cannibalisation of nature and the brutalisation of social life. Capitalist ideologues championed greed as foundational for society, but this, Castro cautioned, was merely an ideological claim rather than a statement drawn from reality. Similar ideological claims – such as those about the rational operation of markets – encouraged Castro to insist on the urgent need to wage a ‘battle of ideas’ to make the case for the richness of the human experience against the reductions of market fundamentalism.
‘Not weapons, but ideas will decide this universal battle’, Castro said, ‘and not because of some intrinsic value, but because of how closely they relate to the objective reality of today’s world. These ideas stem from the conviction that, mathematically speaking, the world has no other way out, that imperialism is unsustainable, that the system that has been imposed on the world leads to disaster, to an insurmountable crisis’.
That was in 1998. Since then, matters have become even more grave. In late January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists brought the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight, ‘the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been’. The self-described managers of the ‘world order’ (the G7 countries) who are responsible for this journey to annihilation continue to dominate the Battle of Ideas. This must no longer be permitted.
I am typing these words in Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba, which is the home of arts and culture not only for Cuba but all Latin America. Founded in 1959 by Haydée Santamaría (1923–1980), one of the pioneers of the Cuban Revolution, Casa became a reference for the necessity to advance class struggle on the cultural front. For Fidel, institutions such as Casa, with whom we collaborated for our dossier Ten Theses on Marxism and Decolonisation, are integral to this battle of ideas, to this confrontation with a vision of reality that is inimical to human progress. ‘Ideas are not simply an instrument to build consciousness and lead people to fight’, Fidel told the youth in 1998. In fact, ideas ‘have become the main weapon in the struggle, not a source of inspiration, not a guide, not a directive, but the main weapon of the struggle’. He quoted José Martí, the great Cuban patriot, as he often did: ‘Trenches made of ideas are stronger than those made of stones’.
In our dossier, thesis eight focused on the erosion of the collective life. As we wrote then:
Neoliberal globalisation vanquished the sense of collective life and deepened the despair of atomisation through two connected processes:
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- by weakening the trade union movement and the social possibilities that come within the public action and workplace struggle rooted in trade unionism.
- by substituting the idea of the citizen with the idea of the consumer – in other words, the idea that human beings are principally consumers of goods and services, and that human subjectivity can be best appreciated through a desire for things.
The breakdown of social collectivity and the rise of consumerism harden despair, which morphs into various kinds of retreat. Two examples of this are: a) a retreat into family networks that cannot sustain the pressures placed upon them by the withdrawal of social services, the increasing burden of care work on the family, and ever longer commute times and workdays; b) a move towards forms of social toxicity through avenues such as religion or xenophobia. Though these avenues provide opportunities to organise collective life, they are organised not for human advancement, but for the narrowing of social possibility.
Red Books Day, one gesture to rescue collective life, emerged from the International Union of Left Publishers (IULP), a network of over forty publishing houses. On 21 February 1848, 175 years ago, Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto. The IULP picked that day, 21 February, to encourage people from around the world to go into public places, from the street to cafés and union halls, and read their favourite red books (including the manifesto) in their own languages.
In 2020, the first Red Books Day, more than 30,000 people from South Korea to Venezuela joined the public reading of the manifesto in their own languages. The epicentre of Red Books Day was in the four Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, where the bulk of public readings took place. Peasant organisations affiliated with the Communist Party of Nepal held readings in rural areas, while the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil held readings in occupied settlements. In Havana, study circles met to read the manifesto, while in South Africa the Sesotho translation was launched and read for the first time. Left publishing houses from Expressão Popular in Brazil to Batalla de Ideas in Argentina and Inkani Books in South Africa also joined the effort. Many participants reported that this was the first time that they had opened a book by Marx and that the captivating prose has drawn them to start study circles of Marxist literature.
Due to the pandemic, Red Books Day 2021 was held largely online, but enthusiasm remained high nonetheless. The publishing house Založba (Slovenia) released a released a short film entitled Dan rdečih knjig (‘Red Books Day’), in which Založba’s writers read from the manifesto. Meanwhile, the publishing house Yordam Kitap in Turkey asked its authors to read from the manifesto in Turkish and organised a talk with Ertuğrul Kürkçü, a leader of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP). Small, appropriately distanced gatherings took place in Kerala, where the manifesto was read in Malayalam and English, as well as in Brazil, where militants of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) organised readings of the manifesto in Portuguese in their encampments. Not one corner of India was without Red Books Day events, as readings took place from Assam to Karnataka to Tamil Nadu.
The highlight of Red Books Day 2022 was that half a million people in Kerala (India) read the books of EMS Namboodiripad in 35,000 meetings across the state. Various colleges in Perinthalmanna (Malappuram) held a three-day-long book festival, The Battle of Literature in the Era of the Ban, while the Purogamana Kala Sahitya Sangham (Association of Progressive Art and Literature) held programmes across Kerala. At the Vijayawada Book Festival in Andhra Pradesh, Prajasakti Bookhouse erected a popular Communist Manifesto book stall, while in villages in Maharashtra, night classes were held that reminded participants of the early days of the peasant movement.
Readings were held in Indonesia and Turkey, Brazil and Venezuela. Films were screened and music was sung while social media buzzed with the hashtags of Red Books Day in multiple languages. The South African shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo held a talent show on Red Books Day at the eKhenana occupation site. ‘The price for land and autonomy is always paid in blood. But struggle is not only shared suffering. It is also shared joy’, the organisation declared.
At dawn on Red Books Day in 2022, members of the neo-fascist RSS organisation entered the Thalassery (Kerala) home of Punnol Haridas, a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M). They hacked Haridas, a fisherman, to death. ‘I was supposed to write on my favourite red book today’, wrote V. Sivadasan, a member of parliament and CPI(M) leader, ‘but I ended up writing about my comrade who was hacked to death by RSS terrorists’.
In 2023, the fourth Red Books Day promises to build on previous years, fighting to rescue our collective life from the atomisation of precarious living.
Last week, a severe earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, taking the lives of more than 30,000 people so far, displacing millions in the region and plunging them into precarity. In Syria, US-led sanctions have delayed the delivery of critical international aid. Many also see the high death toll as a result of the Turkish state’s neglect. Following the devastation of the 1999 Gölcük-Marmara earthquake, an ‘earthquake tax’ was levied on the public, raising nearly $4 billion between July 1999 and July 2022. Yet, no clear evidence exists regarding how those funds have been spent and if they have gone towards emergency services and safety measures. In an attempt to rescue collective life in this terrifying moment, Ertuğrul Kürkçü of the HDP calls to ‘transform earthquake solidarity into a social movement’ against the prevailing neoliberal system. If you would like to donate to the relief efforts, you can do so here.
On one side of our world today are red books and the urge to expand the boundaries of humanity and left culture; on the other side are violence and bloodshed, the ghastly side of barbarism. Red Books Day affirms the culture of the future, the culture of humans. It is a crucial front in the Battle of Ideas.
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by Our Economic Affairs Correspondent
“The IMF’s emphasis on fiscal austerity has proven to be misguided and has resulted in economic stagnation, high levels of unemployment, and increased poverty in many countries.” – Noam Chomsky
Sri Lanka is eagerly anticipating change. Sri Lankans are tired of being robbed by many parties, be the local or foreign. Recently, politicians who were on the run have been now secured their safe houses, while innocent people are being targeted with usual measures. This has been attributed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a well-known international financial institution that relies on the support of others. Even those in rural areas who previously showed little interest in the IMF are now discussing its role in the country.
However, the IMF is not a charity, and it is not expected to resolve Sri Lanka’s crisis. Instead, it will provide guidance similar to an accountant overseeing the accounts of a struggling company. Unfortunately, neither the IMF nor the power-hungry politicians in Sri Lanka seem to genuinely care about the country’s crisis. We must thank Gotabaya Rajapaksa for unmasking, knowingly or unknowingly, the issues that Sri Lanka faces, and for forcing Sri Lankans to acknowledge the country’s state. If the IMF is honest in its efforts, it should explain why their interventions failed the last 16 times Sri Lanka sought assistance. Could Sri Lanka become the next Jamaica, with the IMF taking control? We must take a closer look.
No doubt, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been a key player in the global economy since its creation in 1944. The IMF provides loans and technical assistance to countries facing economic challenges, with the goal of promoting economic stability and growth. However, there are many examples of IMF policies and loan conditions that have had negative consequences for the countries they were intended to help. One of these examples is Jamaica, where IMF policies have been blamed for exacerbating economic inequality and hindering long-term development.
Jamaica is a small island nation in the Caribbean, with a population of just under three million people. Like many other countries in the region, Jamaica has faced significant economic challenges over the years, including high levels of debt, inflation, and unemployment. The country has received multiple loans from the IMF over the past few decades, with the most recent loan approved in 2016. However, many Jamaicans feel that IMF policies have only made their economic situation worse.
One of the key criticisms of IMF policies in Jamaica is the focus on austerity measures, which often require the country to reduce public spending and increase taxes. These measures have been particularly harmful to the poorest sections of the population, who are most vulnerable to economic shocks. In Jamaica, the government has implemented a series of austerity measures over the years, including cutting social spending and increasing taxes on essential goods such as electricity and fuel. These measures have contributed to an increase in poverty and social inequality, as well as undermining the country’s long-term development prospects.
Another criticism of IMF policies in Jamaica is the focus on privatization and liberalization. These policies have led to the sale of state-owned assets, such as utilities and transportation, to private investors. While these policies may lead to short-term gains, they can have negative consequences in the long run. For example, privatization can lead to higher prices for essential services, as private companies seek to maximize their profits. This can further exacerbate the economic challenges faced by the poorest sections of the population, who may not be able to afford these higher prices.
In addition to these specific policies, some critics argue that the overall approach of the IMF is too focused on short-term fixes and not enough on long-term development. IMF loans often come with rigorous conditions that require the borrowing country to implement specific policies or undertake specific reforms, but these conditions may not address the underlying structural issues that have contributed to the country’s economic challenges. This focus on short-term fixes can make it difficult for countries like Jamaica to build a sustainable and resilient economy that benefits all its citizens.
Well, Jamaica is not alone. There are several other examples of countries where IMF policies have been criticized for their negative impact on the economy and society.
If the IMF fails in Sri Lanka, it will be just a case study for them, but it is the fate of more than 22 million people. Who will take note of this seriously when those in power are playing modern-day Nero?
One such example is Argentina, which has a long history of economic instability and has been a frequent borrower from the IMF. In 2018, Argentina received a $57 billion loan from the IMF, the largest loan in the organization’s history. However, the loan came with strict conditions, including austerity measures and cuts to social spending. Critics argued that these policies exacerbated economic inequality and contributed to a deepening recession in the country. Consequently, according to Xinhua, “Argentina recorded 98.8 percent year-on-year inflation in January, after starting the year with a monthly price increase of 6 percent, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) reported Tuesday, 14 February 2023.”
Another example is Greece, which received multiple loans from the IMF and other international lenders during the debt crisis that began in 2009. These loans came with conditions that required the Greek government to implement austerity measures and structural reforms. However, these policies were deeply unpopular with the Greek people and contributed to social unrest and political instability in the country. Many argue that the IMF’s focus on austerity measures delayed Greece’s economic recovery and hindered its long-term development.
A third example is Zambia, which has received multiple loans from the IMF over the past few decades. Critics argue that the conditions attached to these loans, which often require the government to reduce public spending and increase taxes, have contributed to social inequality and undermined the country’s long-term development prospects. For example, the IMF’s requirement for Zambia to reduce public spending on healthcare led to a decrease in the availability of essential medicines and equipment, making it harder for people to access healthcare services.
These examples illustrate the complex and often controversial role that the IMF plays in the global economy. While the organization’s loans and technical assistance can be helpful in promoting economic stability and growth, there are concerns about the impact of its policies on the poorest sections of society and on long-term development prospects. As such, it is important for the IMF to take a more comprehensive and long-term approach to its lending policies, one that prioritizes sustainable and inclusive development over short-term fixes.
True, it is difficult to predict whether Sri Lanka will become another Jamaica, Greece, or Argentina, but there are certainly concerns about the impact of IMF policies on the country’s long-term economic and social development. Sri Lanka has received loans from the IMF 16 times in the past and is currently negotiating its 17th bailout, with the aim of addressing the country’s ongoing economic challenges, including high levels of debt, inflation, and unemployment.
To avoid the negative consequences of IMF policies seen in other countries, Sri Lanka could consider adopting some of the recommendations put forward by top economists and experts in the field of development economics. One key recommendation is to focus on sustainable and inclusive economic development, rather than short-term fixes and austerity measures. This could involve investing in infrastructure, education, and other long-term development initiatives, with a focus on creating jobs and promoting economic growth in a way that benefits all citizens.
Another recommendation is to address the underlying structural issues that have contributed to the country’s economic challenges, such as corruption, inefficiency, and poor governance. This could involve implementing reforms to improve the business environment, increase transparency, and reduce bureaucracy, which could help to attract investment and create a more vibrant and dynamic economy.
In addition, Sri Lanka could explore alternative sources of funding and technical assistance, such as regional development banks or partnerships with other countries. These alternatives may offer more flexibility and a more nuanced approach to development challenges, which could better address the specific needs and priorities of the country.
Overall, Sri Lanka has a challenging road ahead as it seeks to address its economic challenges and promote sustainable development. To avoid the negative consequences of IMF policies seen in other countries, it will be important for Sri Lanka to take a comprehensive and long-term approach to economic development, one that prioritizes the needs and interests of all its citizens.
Sri Lanka, a beautiful island nation in South Asia, has been facing severe economic challenges for decades. Despite multiple interventions by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country’s economic crisis has not been resolved. In fact, Sri Lanka is currently seeking its 17th loan from the IMF, but there are doubts about the effectiveness of this latest effort to address the country’s economic woes. Why Sri Lanka has not been able to solve its economic crisis, and why the ongoing 17th IMF loan may lead to social turmoil without producing a lasting solution?
Sri Lanka’s economic challenges can be traced back to the country’s long-standing civil war, which lasted for nearly 30 years and ended in 2009. The conflict caused significant economic damage, and the country’s post-war economic recovery was slow. Moreover, the country’s high levels of public spending, corruption, and lack of investment in key sectors such as infrastructure have contributed to a sustained economic crisis. These challenges have been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has further weakened the country’s economy.
The IMF has been a key partner of Sri Lanka in its efforts to address its economic challenges. The IMF has provided loans to Sri Lanka for 16 times in the past. However, despite these efforts, the country’s economic situation has not improved significantly. There are several reasons why the IMF’s interventions have not been successful in addressing Sri Lanka’s economic crisis.
First, the IMF’s loan programs often require the borrowing country to implement strict austerity measures, such as reducing public spending and increasing taxes. These measures can have a significant impact on the poorest sections of the population, who are often the most vulnerable to economic shocks. In Sri Lanka, the government has been reluctant to implement these measures, fearing the political backlash that could result from public protests and unrest.
Second, the IMF’s loan programs are typically focused on addressing short-term economic challenges, such as balancing the budget or reducing inflation. These measures may not address the underlying structural issues that have contributed to Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, such as corruption, weak institutions, and lack of investment in key sectors. Without addressing these structural issues, any short-term gains achieved through IMF programs are unlikely to be sustainable.
Third, the IMF’s loans often come with conditions that require the borrowing country to undertake significant economic reforms, such as liberalizing the economy or privatizing state-owned enterprises. These reforms can be politically challenging and may not be implemented effectively if there is insufficient political will or capacity to do so.
Given these challenges, the ongoing 17th loan from the IMF may not produce a lasting solution to Sri Lanka’s economic crisis. The loan program is expected to include conditions that require the government to undertake significant economic reforms, including reducing public spending and increasing taxes. These measures are likely to be politically unpopular, and the government may face significant public protests and unrest if it attempts to implement them.
Sri Lanka’s economic crisis is a complex and multifaceted challenge that requires a long-term, sustainable solution. While the IMF has been a key partner in Sri Lanka’s efforts to address its economic challenges, the organization’s loan programs may not be sufficient to address the country’s underlying structural issues. Without addressing these underlying issues, any short-term gains achieved through IMF programs are unlikely to be sustainable.
Sri Lanka needs a comprehensive, long-term strategy that addresses its underlying economic and social challenges, including corruption, weak institutions, and lack of investment in key sectors. The government must prioritize addressing these structural issues and work towards building a more resilient and sustainable economy that benefits all Sri Lankans.
While the IMF can be a valuable partner in this effort, the government must take a leadership role in driving the necessary reforms and ensuring that they are implemented effectively. Without a sustained and comprehensive effort to address its economic challenges, Sri Lanka’s economic crisis is likely to persist, causing further harm to its people and undermining its long-term stability and development. Consequently, no wonder if Sri Lanka becomes the IMF’s new Jamaica.
Nothing better than take the sage words of a well-known economist, Joseph Stiglitz, “the IMF has a history of imposing harsh economic policies on developing countries, which often lead to social and economic turmoil, and are designed to favour the interests of wealthy creditor nations and international corporations over those of debtor countries.” If the IMF fails in Sri Lanka, it will be just a case study for them, but it is the fate of more than 22 million people. Who will take note of this seriously when those in power are playing modern-day Nero? Real Nero never did that, but in our time Neros, certainly will.
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This short article explains a framework for analysing Sri Lankan state formation and understanding the current challenges that the country is facing. My interest in state formation began when trying to make sense of the data on political violence and state repression that I had collected from 1977. I realised that I could easily expand this database to cover the entire post-colonial period. It was also clear that this violence was not an abberation or exception, but a systemic characteristic of Sri Lankan society. The data collected largely consisted of numbers and reports of individual events. It just touched the surface of the problem. To understand the impact of political violence and state repression in Sri Lankan society you need to go deeper, preferably using a case study method. This is a task for future researchers.
The dominant essentialist categorisation of the Sri Lankan state -that it is a democracy or a welfare state – was not compatible with the level of political violence and state repression that I was witnessing. In the meantime, I had also begun to analyse political answers to the Tamil demand for a separate state, with a focus on state reform. But this notion of state reform fitted with the conventional approach to studying a state. This approach treats the state as a concrete, self-contained entity that has attained a final status. The legal notion of sovereignty strengthens this idea. Those who control the state, and their ideologues, always try to convey this notion. A whole paraphernalia of rituals, histories and symbols have developed – not only to promote this idea, but also to convey the eternal character of the state.Much of the effort to promote goals such as economic growth, social development and democracy are based on a notion that states have been formed, and now the task is to focus on promoting these objectives.
In contrast to this, the moment you begin to look at states as a product of historical processes, new ways of looking at the state and new avenues of research emerge. This is the way we look at other social phenomena – so why not states? States are formed under certain historical conditions. They continuously undergo changes, and under certain circumstances can even totally disappear. A cursory glance at the history of the world will show this.
At this point it is important to emphasise that, although states are a product of history, once formed they have a degree of autonomy from other societal processes. This means that states cannot be understood by reducing them to any other feature in society. The earliest efforts within Marxist tradition explained the state as a product of capitalist development. This economic reductionism was replaced by a notion of the relative autonomy of the state. Now there are studies focusing more on the autonomous power of the state.
State formation involves developing mechanisms to control territory and to manage state-society relations in a specific historical context. The identity of the state, institutions and public policies are key dimensions in this process. State-society relations are maintained through coercion and consent. When consent overrides coercion, we have states that have legitimacy in society. In such situations the hegemony that sustains the state is strong. When coercion predominates, state security is given priority – but it undermines the security of individuals and groups in society. There is an inherent weakness in the hegemony that sustains this type of state. These processes don’t develop in the same way in all states. They have to be analysed taking specific historical context into account.
A state needs resources to sustain itself, and to manage relations with politically important social groups. These two dimensions constitute the economic security of the state.These resources have to be secured within the process of capitalist transition. When the state has enough economic resources and is able to manage relations with the politically important social groups through specific policies, there is an element of consent in certain dimensions of state-society relations. When this fails the state resorts to coercive measures, and this affects the pattern of state expenditure.
State formation always takes place in an international context – the study of state formation is a study of an individual state in a global context. The international context consists of a system of states, organisations formed by these states and global capitalism. The relationship between the states and global capitalism cannot be seen as a zero-sum game. Changes in global capitalism transform states and the relationship between them. Developments in global capitalism can make some states strong, and some weak.
The international system changes over time. This, in turn, has an impact on the state formation process of individual states. Changes in the global system are determined by the actions of the more powerful players in the international system. The capacity of smaller states to influence changes at the global level is limited. But global-level changes have an impact on the state formation process of smaller states like Sri Lanka.
In the post-colonial history of state formation in Sri Lanka, three types of state-society relations have been important:
– First, relations between the centralised state, inherited from the British colonial period, and minorities. State formation involves bringing together diverse ethnic and religious groups under a single policy.This has not been an easy process in many parts of world. When identity groups have a special link with a part of the territory of the state, it creates special problems. This dimension has been a major source of violence in the history of state formation of Sri Lanka. Trying to construct a centralised state defined by the identity of the Sinhala majority led to Tamils demanding a separate state covering the Northern and Eastern Provinces. What happened in 2009 was consolidating the territory of the centralised Sinhala nationalist state through military means. There has been little progress towards a state that has legitimacy in a multi-ethnic society. The social costs of the last stages of the war have created new problems. In addition, discussions on state-minority relations today cannot be confined to the problems of Tamil people alone. The concerns of other two numerically large minorities – Muslims and Hill country Tamils must be considered.
– Second, electoral politics and state formation. On one hand, electoral politics is a mechanism through which the political elite that controls the state is chosen. On the other side, it is also a mechanism to manage relations between rulers and the ruled. The history of state formation in areas where electoral politics has existed for a long time shows that the characteristics of the political system that emerges is an important factor in constructing a national political space. Constructing a national political space is an important factor in creating a unified state. This means that breaking down territorial cleavages is not simply a result of social changes, but also a product of the actions of parties and characteristics of political systems.
In the case of the post-colonial state formation of Sri Lanka, the dominance of ethnicity right from the beginning gave rise to a political system that could not contribute to the construction of a national political space.Instead, electoral politics and the political system produced regional political spaces with ethnic characteristics. This means that the electoral politics of the post-colonial Sri Lankan state has to be discussed taking account of ethnic political spaces, rather than treating Sri Lanka as a unified political space. The vote in Sinhala majority districts was critical in deciding who came to power.
While electoral politics undermined the formation of a unified state in a multi-ethnic society, its institutionalisation resulted in a competitive system of politics within the Sinhala majority. However, today this aspect of the political system which depends on the support of the Sinhala majority, is highly fractured. Two trends dominate – the struggle to control the presidency and enjoy the power that comes with it and deal -making politics for the sake of power. How this political system can tackle the multiple problems that the country is facing is an open question. Certainly, legal reforms alone will not go very far.
– The third important variable in post-colonial state formation of Sri Lanka is relations between the state and the Sinhala majority in the context of the politics of capitalist transition.Capitalist transition within a state is a process that involves changing institutions or the ‘rules of the game’, so that markets become the primary mechanism for resource allocation. These changes must be legitimised at an ideological level. When institutions to establish markets are successful, they become ideas that seem to be natural and common sense, thereby creating a hegemony. The establishment of the hegemony of markets is not a technocratic process, but a political process. Conflicts and struggles are always a part of this. The process of capitalist transition takes place in a particular society within its own history. This means that capitalism is not some sort of model. It is shaped by political struggles and historical processes in a particular context.
Since the socio-economic impact of capitalism is always unequal, in Sri Lanka various sections of the Sinhala majority benefitted more than others from capitalist transition. In other words, although the Sinhalese were unified in ethnic terms, they were divided in class terms. The inequality generated by capitalist transition within the Sinhala majority could always combine with the Sinhala nationalism that legitimised the state to oppose the regime in power. The opposition to regimes could also turn into an opposition to capitalism, and a general opposition to the state itself. In order to meet this challenge, the post-colonial state developed a number of policies. These are what is usually called ‘welfare’ policies. The use of the term welfare ignores their strategic role as a technique of state formation. This makes it easier to argues that these policies are luxuries we cannot afford.
The ability of the state to continue with these policies depends on the performance of the Sri Lankan economy within global capitalism. In post-colonial historythere were several instances when this strategy of state formation broke down, resulting in protest, sometimes violent challenges to the state and state repression. At present we are witnessing another such instance because the Sri Lankan state was unable to satisfy the demands of global financial capital. This is happening in a society with the socio-economic impact of three decades of armed conflict, and four decades of more liberal economic policies. The latter has resulted in an increase in socio-economic inequality. Instead of trying to make use of this opportunity to rethink social policy while restoring economic growth, what prevails are the same old ideas of safety nets and, of course, state repression.
To end this short piece, I would like to emphasise that there is no one big answer to Sri Lanka’s problems. The outcome of answers to one issue can contradict answers to other questions. In addition, the analysis of the present must be done with a historical sense. Many are preaching single-factor answers for various reasons. Some are simply a reflection of self-interest, and nothing more. It is time to shift this debate, so that we can take into account of the complexity of the situation.
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Click here to read Part One of this series.
Limited land Resource
As Sri Lanka is a county with highly diversified agroecological zones and two main cultivation seasons, most crops cultivated in other parts of the world can be grown. However, the arable land area is limited and can’t be increased further without damaging the environment. The reality is that the total arable land area is decreasing due to the expansion of settlements and secondary and tertiary sector activities, and environmental and wildlife concerns. Under these circumstances, when incentives are offered to promote selected crops, it will be at the cost of other crops. For instance, once maise cultivation is encouraged, the area under other pulses and grains will decrease. Under these circumstances, while rationalising the usage of limited arable land area, importing food items that don’t require much foreign exchange may be cheaper than producing locally. For instance, the land used for potato cultivation in Nuwara-Eliya would be utilised for floriculture, tourism, or other high-value economic activities to earn more foreign exchange while importing potatoes at a low price. That enables the saving of limited arable lands for more productive uses to make or save more foreign exchange and maximise the sustainable use of the limited land resources.
Human- Wild Animal Conflict
Apart from the agrochemical fiasco, the threat of wild animals(wild elephants, peacocks, monkeys, wild bows, hedgehogs etc.)is emerging as a new challenge, contributing immensely to crop damage, low productivity, abandoning the arable land and loss of properties and lives of farm families. The government and many NGOs are there to promote and advocate for animal rights. But the same priority is not accorded to the living right of human beings in those areas. The wildlife department is also concerned only about the wild animal, not the grave injustice faced by the farmers. Sometimes, tiny patches of forest surrounded by human settlements are declared as wildlife reserves without any rational basis, inviting harmful wild animals to stay in the middle of human settlements. The harmful animal population is also rapidly increasing, becoming a persistent problem aggravating the human-wild animal conflict without a solution. The relevant authorities may only recognise the issue once it becomes a catastrophe. Today no one takes responsibility for the wild animal menace, and the solutions are left to the affected people. The country is yet to develop a strategy to separate wild animals from human settlements and farmlands. Electric fencing against elephants is an unsuccessful attempt to encircle villages and farmlands, limiting human activities while allowing elephants to roam freely. Under these circumstances, farmers gradually abandon the cultivation of most arable lands and try to change/adjust their way of life to co-exist with wild animals in the same settlement.
Agriculture Research
Agriculture research and extension in Sri Lanka is highly fragmented and handled by many ministries, departments, and institutions, and the government funds all. Therefore, ‘Sri Lanka Council for Agricultural Research Policy’ was established in 1987 as an umbrella organisation for all stakeholders and to adopt a national agriculture research system. Though it has been in operation for 35 years, a practical research policy and a research system are yet to be developed. All research institutions and research arms of ministries and departments operate in isolation, without complementarity, and even with duplications. The council supports producing research papers for scholars, but those findings and recommendations have rarely been used to improve the agriculture sector policies and strategies. Those research papers may have enhanced the knowledge of agriculture professionals and postgraduate students, but not the farmers or farming systems. Though there are many research institutions for different crops, their innovations and adaptations are far behind compared to other countries in the region. We have high-cost physical facilities and institutional infrastructure, including professionals to do research. But the machinery is not moving. Even valuable solutions are found, very rarely are those released/sold to the private sector for commercial production.
Except for seed paddy, other food crop seeds, tools, equipment, and machinery are imported today. Those do not match precisely with our agroecology, landholding size, terrain, soil conditions, farming practices, etc., leading to inefficiency and misuse of technology. As there are no locally produced seeds, unscrupulous businesspeople are taking advantage of it and selling imported seeds at exorbitant prices or fake products. From time-to-time government comes up with promotional programs for home garden cultivation. But home garden seed packs available in the market are of inferior quality; they are not germinating or, if germinated, not bearing fruits.
The Seasonal Glut and scarcity.
Even in this twenty-first century, seasonal variation in food quality, quantity and supply prices is considerably high in Sri Lanka. However, this problem has been eased to a certain extent after completing the Mahaweli project, as farmers could cultivate in the dry season through irrigation water. However, the harvest is still wasted during the glut while importing essentials during lean periods. Many countries use modern technology, such as the cold chain system and canning, drying, exporting etc., to avoid this issue. But we are yet to harness those potentials economically. Most of our market is supplied from scattered smallholdings, where collecting the required quantity to transport by vehicles is cumbersome. Also, a considerable amount is damaged when it reaches central locations to be transported to Colombo and other main cities. Packing for transportation is done in a very primitive manner, cramping /beating in open trucks. According to our tradition, fruits and vegetables are presented for retail sale in the open air without cooling facilities. Vegetables that come from cold rooms will perish immediately in the open air. Under these circumstances, the cold-chain system doesn’t give a satisfactory answer for the broader market except for the niche market.
Diversity of Agroecology
But Sri Lanka is blessed with four seasons (two dry and two wet seasons), three agroecological zones (dry, wet and intermediate), and another variation as low country and up the country. These natural factors may be harnessed to distribute the cultivation of seasonal crops throughout the year to minimise the seasonal effects instead of depending on a cold chain system. For instance, big onion cultivation in Dambulla is done in late Yala, whereas the harvesting is done in September /October. The same may be cultivated in some parts of Hambantota and Monaragala districts in early Yala to be harvested in May/June. Another example is that the mango season in most parts of the country is in May/July, but it is in November/January in some parts of the Monaragala district. Similarly, many seasonal crops could be identified to be cultivated in different seasons/months in different agroecological zones to distribute the availability throughout the year. Under a rational fiscal and foreign trade policy, not only the local climatic and agroecological factors but also such global factors can be harnessed to our advantage. Sri Lanka imports most seasonal foods from the countries above the equator that have the same glut and off seasons. But glut and lean seasons differ from Sri Lanka in counties below the equator, like South American and South African countries. Suppose there is a possibility of exchanging seasonal food products with those countries. In that case, Sri Lanka will be able to export surplus products at reasonable prices during the glut and import during off-seasons.
Today, many talks about a golden era of Sri Lankans had rice for all three meals and the need to reach the same status again, and this is a mythical assumption and backward thinking. Rice was scarce throughout history, and people always economised the expensive rice by supplementing it with cheaper and more nutritious food supplements such as yams, nuts, pulses, grains etc. It achieved multiple objectives, such as economising the expensive rice, maximising the advantage of natural factors by cultivating different crops, and a balanced diet at a low cost. Most of those crops are drought resistant and don’t need much water. Unlike the olden days, today, high-yielding supplementary food crops can be cultivated and processed to the consumer’s taste using modern technology.
Fertiliser Subsidy
The average paddy yield per hectare in 2005 was 3965 kg before introducing free fertiliser (nominal price) for paddy. After implementing the scheme for ten years, the average yield increased to 4429 in 2015. Whether this increase is due to the free fertiliser is still being determined. Other reasons, such as rainfall, increasing the area under irrigation, etc., may have contributed to the higher yield. However, the benefit of the fertiliser subsidy has not trickled down to the consumers as the rice price has increased by three or 4-fold during this period. Yet the increase in farmers’ real income is also not evident. Farmers often receive subsidised/free fertiliser towards the end of the cultivation season or after harvesting. Farmers will have to follow cumbersome bureaucratic procedures and waste time for many days in queues to receive the free/subsidised fertiliser. Land-holding size and crop-wise discriminatory subsidies have induced much corruption. Instead of free or nominal price, farmers prefer to purchase fertiliser and other inputs at a reasonable price at their convenience, without wasting time and following bureaucratic procedures. Under this scenario, though the government is spending significantly on fertiliser subsidies, it is doubtful whether the farmers and the country are gaining much of it.
Water Management Issues
Today, the entire process of paddy farming, from land preparation to harvesting, is done with irrigation water in major irrigation schemes, which consumes a large volume of irrigation water per crop/acre. Irrigation water is released end or towards the end of the rainy season, especially in the Maha season, for the convenience of bureaucrats and farmers. Consequently, the next rainy season starts before Maha’s harvesting, resulting in crop damage. Suppose the land preparation is commenced with the rainwater. In that case, irrigation water requires only a few weeks at the tail end of the Maha season (main season), leaving adequate water for the Yala(second season). Also, harvesting is possible before commencing the Yala rainy season. Moreover, water is excessively used by privileged farmers close to the water source or the canal due to the locational advantage, while others need more water. All farmers will receive sufficient water for both seasons if reservoir water is appropriately managed.
The Way Forward to Fill Gaps in the Existing System
The rational use of agrochemicals is essential to overcome large-scale food scarcity and hunger and to feed the increasing population. Organic farming has become unacceptable to all Sri Lankans due to the agrochemical fiasco of the Mithri and Gotabaya governments. However, without allowing for fading away of the concept, it must encourage as a product for the niche market of high-end consumers initially and gradually be expanded for the broader market based on that experience. As explained in the Sri Lanka National Agriculture Policy document, it should be done step by step with a scientific approach. Further, it should be supported by an appropriate fiscal policy.
The central ministry and the department of agriculture should not wash off their hands, saying extension is a devolved subject to provincial councils. A unified agriculture extension system with strong linkages with the central department of agriculture, research arms, subnational-level agriculture institutions and manned by qualified staff may be re-established. Agriculture extension should cover all aspects from land preparation until products leave the farm gate. The Ministry and the department should regularly monitor the performance, like the education and health sector. The previously implemented extension system, the ‘Training and Visit System’, could be re-introduced with necessary modifications based on previous experiences. The Sri Lanka National Agriculture Policy 2020 must implement on the ground without limiting it to a document, and provincial councils shall adapt it with necessary changes to suit their provinces.
Research must go beyond knowledge enhancement and concentrate on the farmers’ practical issues. Research must be focused on much-needed tools, equipment, machinery, seed production, cultivation practices etc., to improve the land and labour productivity, post-harvest technology, encompassing packing, packeting, transporting, preserving, and value addition, enabling quality products to consumers. We must identify appropriate technology from other countries and modify them according to our needs. The research grants scheme of the Council for Agriculture Research Policy should focus on technical innovations acceptable to farmers instead of producing desk-work-based research papers. Large-scale farm entrepreneurs and engineering firms must be supported to do technological innovation for the whole gamut of agriculture, from farming to value addition. The agriculture department needs a system to monitor the entire seed production process, from planting to retail selling to farmers. The research infrastructure shall be utilised to realise the maximum benefit through; allocating essential recurrent expenses, recognising researchers and their contribution properly, understanding among policymakers and researchers about the practical research needs of farmers, disseminating findings, and recognising the need for technology transfer, farm mechanisation and modernisation. Government research institution shall sell their research findings to the private sector for commercial production, ensuring the sustainable application of research findings. Also, they must undertake research needed by the private sector on a fee-levying basis.
Abandoned and underutilised government farms must be leased out to local and foreign private sectors to develop and manage as seed farms, livestock breeding farms, model farms, nuclear farms, out-grower systems etc., to create enabling environment for smallholders to undertake modern advanced agriculture. Government researchers must do their research works on those farms instead of entirely depending on research funding from the government. By doing so, the government can save and earn an income while achieving multiple objectives, such as disseminating research findings and commercialising innovations for sustainability. Under any circumstances, government-owned arable lands/farms should not distribute for housing and non-economic activities. Whether in urban or rural areas, housing solutions shall be high-rise or clusters, enabling the physical infrastructure and transport to be convenient and less expensive while saving arable land for productive purposes.
Soil testing is essential for every agro-ecological zone and recommends appropriate fertiliser mixtures and quantities according to crop varieties to minimise their use and maximise the benefits. An advisory service must recommend the correct chemicals and dosage to prevent the trial-and-error method of using pesticides and fungicides. Instead of shouldering its burden on the government, a regulation may be introduced for compulsory employment of a qualified and trained person by each agrochemical vendor to prescribe such products to farmers. Appropriate weeding instruments must be designed and popularised to prevent the over-application of weedicides. Appropriate planting methods shall be introduced, enabling mechanical weeding and fertiliser application. Also, non-mechanical and non-chemical weed control techniques such as polythene cover and mulching with bio-degradable stuff may be introduced.
In this modern era, agriculture should not be a subsistence activity of uneducated, unskilled peasants, but it should be turned into a profession of educated, skilled youths and entrepreneurs. That can be done only with the introduction of modern technology into agriculture. Instead of depending purely on weather conditions, controlled agriculture, such as micro-irrigation and protected cultivation, shall be popularised among educated youths. The government shall undertake an image-building program to enhance the social recognition of emerging young farmers, and such appreciation may bring more benefits than subsidies. The agriculture sector strategies should focus on reducing the number engaged in farmland to release the excess/underemployed workforce to the secondary and tertiary sectors while increasing land and labour productivity. Meanwhile, the secondary and tertiary sectors shall adopt appropriate strategies to absorb the workforce released from the farmlands.
The government intervention in price control and subsidies for agricultural inputs is a must for a few years until the sector recovers from the agrochemicals fiasco of the Gotabaya/Mithripala Governments. Therefore, an arrangement shall be made to sell fertiliser and other inputs at an affordable fixed price in the open market without discriminating against crops and holding size. The government shall subsidise the difference between the fixed price and the actual cost.AFertiliser Price Stabilisation Fund may be established with the contribution from the consolidated fund and fertilisers. The cess may be charged from all agricultural bulk products exported without substantial local value addition. The Cess from paddy may be collected from rice millers according to the volume processed. However, the fertiliser cess should not be exploitative or punitive to discourage the farmers.
As discussed above, agroecological diversity, which is a gift from nature, shall harness to the maximum to:
- spread the harvesting period for a more extended period of the year, thereby reducing the effect of glut and off seasons,
- diversify food production to ensure food security,
- minimise malnutrition,
- reduce the dependency on high-cost irrigation solutions.
- Reap the maximum benefit from the rainfall and reservoir water.
Also, instead of signing bilateral trade agreements blindly, possibilities should be examined to exchange agricultural products during the gluts and lean periods among other countries where harvesting and lean periods differ from Sri Lanka.
Considering the socio-economic and agroecological factors, a limited number of crops/products with comparative advantages and essential for food security, saving or earning foreign exchange identified and developed as Sri Lanka brands (made in Ceylon), like Ceylon Tea, for the local and export market. The government shall support the entire process, from planting to marketing those crops/ products, for a considerable period until those become self-sustainable. The prime objective of the agriculture sector policy should be the rational use of the limited extent of arable lands to achieve the above objectives.
The department of agriculture shall take full responsibility for producing quality seeds on its own or with the assistance of the private sector. The department shall monitor the entire process, whether the seeds are produced locally or imported. Necessary legal provisions shall be introduced to make the department fully responsible for all aspects of seeds.
Instead of encircling human being while wild animals are freely roaming around the country, the process shall be reversed to ring wild animals in the forest, allowing the people to move freely in the rest of the country. The resources wasted presently on ad-hoc manner re-direct for a well-prepared plan.
Conclusion
Though some level of development has been achieved, agriculture in Sri Lanka is yet to be developed in pr with the other countries in the region. This has yet to happen due to the shortcomings in the policies and strategies since independence. Still, a significant share of the food crop sub-sector is in the hands of subsistence peasants, who cannot develop it according to the present day’s needs. Still, the policy is to alienate small plots of arable lands and tie the increasing rural labour force to subsistence farming. Sri Lanka has yet to consider absorbing the increasing labour force into the secondary and tertiary sectors. We are still struggling with problems of small land plots inappropriate for modern machinery, low productivity, and high production costs, making food prices unaffordable for the majority. Still, our strategy is sharing the small resource base among many and maintaining everybody equally poor for social justice. (Sharing the small piece of cake among many and starving, instead of making the cake bigger to feed everybody).
Though we have been influenced by external factors such as the Corvid pandemic and Russia-Ukraine War, to a certain extent, our domestic policies and strategies are mainly responsible for the sudden food crisis and collapse of the agriculture sector in 2022. The heavy agricultural investment for about eight decades became futile due to the abrupt end of agrochemical uses. It significantly contributed to the unprecedented civil commotion in 2022, the Galle Face Aragalaya (protest). Ultimately the prime minister and the president were compelled to resign. Learning from this catastrophe, all political parties, professionals, and administrators must agree on a coherent agriculture sector policy and set of strategies with a long-term vision instead of slogans and handouts for cheap popularity. It should focus on ensuring food security and safety at an affordable price for everybody and optimal use of the limited area of arable land and natural endowments.
Concluded
References:
- Republic of Sri Lanka Agricultural Policy and Program Review February 19, 1975, General Agriculture Division South Asia Projects Department Not for Public Use
- DS Senanayakes Endeavours in peasant Agriculture By KM De Silva
- Sri Lanka National Agriculture Policy paper, prepared by the government in 2020
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Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesman and Jaffna District MP M.A. Sumanthiran says that his party has decided to boycott the independence day celebrations this year, as reported in The Island of January 31, 2023. Instead, they will declare it a Black Day and commence a movement towards achieving what they call true freedom. According to him, “Immediately after independence, it was transformed into a majority system under the guise of democracy. That’s why other people living in this country did not get freedom”. What he implies is that the ‘independence’ given was only for the majority Sinhalese, and not for the others (presumably, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers, etc., the minority communities). Sumanthiran thinks that even though the majority Sinhala Buddhist people had been under the impression that they got freedom for many years, they also now feel that they didn’t get any freedom either. So, when the 75th independence day is celebrated, the TNA “will declare it a black day and start a campaign for the country to get its freedom properly”.
Meanwhile, the Indian news website The Federal reported that the 74th Indian Republic Day was celebrated at the Indian Consulate in Jaffna with a function attended by a large gathering of people including Indians, and some local Sri Lankans, mainly Tamils, on January 26, 2023. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police took part in the celebration. Consul General, Madurai-born Raakesh Nataraj, mingled with the guests and exchanged greetings. According to The Federal, both Indian Republic Day and Independence day had been regularly observed in Jaffna until the outbreak of the ethnic conflict.
I wondered why our leaders (apparently) never thought of declaring a Sri Lankan Republic Day after the 1972 republican constitution was enacted on May 22nd that year, and the island nation became a republic independent of any links with the British monarchy .
The truth is that Sumanthiran here, tongue in cheek,is only hinting at a fresh (a last, hopefully successful, as he probably fancies) attempt at eventually realizing the idea of establishing a separate sovereign state for Tamils (but strategically camouflaged asTamil speaking people to co-opt Muslims into the project) in the (soon to be re-merged?) north and east provinces where respectively Tamils and Muslims form the majority, and the Sinhalese are now in a thin minority due to ethnic cleansing by the LTTE. Late Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi (1980-84) also talked about solving ‘the problem of the Tamil speaking people’ in these provinces in Sri Lanka, lumping Hindus and Muslims together as Tamil speaking people, in the interest of India’s own traditional expansionist ambitions against its smaller, weaker neighbours.
Sumanthiran is thinking exclusively about freedom for the Tamil minority, whereas the nationalists – the majority Sinhalese and the sensible majority of the Tamil, Muslim and other minority communities – are concerned about freedom for all who make Sri Lanka their home, that is, the Sri Lankan people or nation; they don’t talk about nations based on ethno-cultural identities. Deliberate disinformation by Eelam lobbyists and parasitic NGOs has turned nationalists into racists, chauvinists, xenophobes, right-wing nationalists, and whatnot in the eyes of the global media.
Since 1948, all Sinhalese leaders have acted on the basis of the concept of one nation or one country, where the majority Sinhalese, who are the true autochthonous inhabitants of the island, along with the veddahs, were joined by other numerically small groups in the course of history in various contexts, such as trade, war, invasion, travel, and so on. The first prime minister of independent Ceylon D.S. Senanayake, when asked by the Soulbury Commissioners at the end of the 1947 parliamentary elections how many Tamils he wanted in his cabinet, said he didn’t mind even if all the cabinet members were Tamil provided they acted as Ceylonese. No Sinhalese parliamentarian has deviated from this line of thinking.
On the other hand, Tamil leaders like All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) leader and later founder of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) lawyer G.G. Ponnambalam were different. They adopted an anti-Sinhala racist attitude. They focused on perpetuating the special privileges that the Tamil elite enjoyed under the British. They felt threatened by a system of parliamentary democracy, because they feared that the Sinhalese majority would put an end to their privileged status. It was Ponnambalam who, for years before independence, had been making the absurd 50-50 demand (clamouring for the allocation of 50% of the seats in the parliament yet to be introduced for the Sinhalese who were the overwhelming majority of the population, and 50% for all the minority groups). The Soulbury Commissioners rejected that demand with contempt. Another Tamil lawyer who came from Malaysia, S.J.V. Chelvanayagam, founded the Tamil Arasu Kachchi (Tamil State Party/euphemistically in English the Federal Party) in 1949 and the rest is history. Sumanthiran seems to be basically among the latest in this tradition.
While preparations are being earnestly made by the government for marking an independence that was not granted (a long retired civil servant likens it to a birthday party for a baby that was never born), the 25th anniversary of the devastating LTTE suicide-truck-bomb attack on the Sri Dalada Maligawa (the Temple of the Tooth Relic) in Kandy fell on January 25, without anyone remembering it. It looks as if the government let it pass without any commemorative observances unlike in previous years. Why? (My sincere apologies to everybody concerned, if I am mistaken in this assumption) Was it in the name of so-called ‘reconciliation’, which has been a not so seriously meant, hollow slogan right from the beginning? Or was it in order to avoid spoiling the national mood for ‘consecrating’ some ostensibly momentous event that is going to coincide with the 75th independence day ceremony? The epoch-making event that Ranil Wickremasinghe wants to celebrate thus, as everybody knows now, is the purported settlement of the alleged Tamil ethnic problem through the full implementation of the controversial 13A (forcibly imposed on Sri Lanka by India, without doubt, in the latter’s exclusive national interest, in 1987). Grown-up Sri Lankans remember how thousands of our patriotic youngsters died in opposing Indian intervention in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs, in the second JVP uprising, which occurred in the years 1986-89 during UNP rule. A thirty year civil conflict claimed the lives of thousands of Sri Lanka’s defence forces personnel, Tamil rebel cadres, and civilians caught in terrorist bomb blasts; the conflict left many more injured. All this was in trying to prevent the certain Balkanization of the country through the 13A. Seven executive presidents from JR Jayawardane to Gotabaya Rajapaksa back-burnered it for a legitimate reason. What are the benefits of a fully implemented 13A that justify such sacrifices of the country’s youth of the previous generation?
Be that as it may, does Ranil Wickremasinghe want to invest this servile surrender to foreign pressure with a sacred quality by having a special Sacred Tooth Relic exposition? It can’t be that he is mocking Sinhalese Buddhist sentiments. True, he was totally rejected by the mainly Buddhist Lankan electorate as a prospective candidate for executive presidency. It could also be a similar passive-aggressive attack on his part on the pohottuwa alliance (the Sri Lanka Podu Peramuna, the SLPP). He must have been waiting for a chance to take his revenge on the SLPP, which turned itself into his nemesis in the last parliamentary election. But the principal partners of the SLPP, the treacherous Rajapaksas, as it has now become so clear to the betrayed public, were able to do this otherwise commendable thing, by pretending to espouse the popular nationalist cause, merely to hoodwink the masses to win votes. Ranil and the Rajapaksas are partners now. They are not strange bedfellows; they are natural allies. Whatever they are making common cause in achieving, turning the country’s hallowed Sinhala Buddhist cultural heritage into a political football between rival factions of conflicting persuasions is something worse than the Maligawa bombing itself. It does not augur well for the future of our Motherland. It is the last thing that fair-minded patriotic citizens belonging to all communities are likely to take lying down.
The only thing that people expect Ranil Wicktremasinghe to do at this moment is to focus on rescuing the country from the economic crisis that it is engulfed in, and leave it to the present day youth of the country from all the diverse communities to lawfully, democratically and peacefully usher in the new corruption free Sri Lanka that they want to build.
When three LTTE suicide cadres drove an explosives laden truck to the Maligawa early on the morning of January 25, 1998, and set it off, it caused massive damage to the building, while killing seventeen innocent worshippers including two two-year old infants and the three suicide bombers. The attack was universally condemned across the civilized world in the sternest terms. It was reported that three times more money was donated by the ordinary people than was necessary for restoring the destroyed parts of the Maligawa, which was completed within two years of the heinous crime. Ranil Wickremasinghe was the leader of the opposition then. Condemning the bombing he said, “Not even in the darkest moments of Sri Lanka’s 2000 year history has such an act of destruction been perpetrated against the very symbol of our civilization and history.” He should know (I am sure he does, for he is a very well-read knowledgeable person) that the Tooth Relic has been a symbol of sovereignty over the island since the 4th century CE when it was brought to Anuradhapura from Dantapuri (modern Puri, Odisha) in India. If he insists on having the Mahanayakes agree to hold a Tooth Relic exposition to give some sort of legitimacy to his controversial move, and if his request is granted by them, then he will appear to mock the sanity of Sri Lankans and the sanctity of this national symbol.
To my shock, however, I hear that the relic exhibition that Ranil Wickremasinghe proposed, is scheduled to start on March 4, a month after the day of disputed independence. If this incredible piece of information is true, then it means that the two Mahanayakes, the guardians of the Maligawa, (no one is above them in this matter) have agreed to bless the ultimate victory of those who wanted to destroy ‘the symbol of our civilization and history’!
Of course, Ranil Wickremasinghe alone cannot be held responsible for what is now almost a certainty. All the leaders (or most of them) and their mostly inarticulate juniors in parliament reportedly support the president’s decision. They should share responsibility, too, for what is going to happen. Constitutionally, of course, there appears to be no barrier to the full implementation of 13A. But that is only a technical point, beyond morality. The three pillars of parliamentary democracy are said to be the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The country’s moral values reign over all three. The ethical conduct of the humans who embody the legislative, executive, and judicial powers is imperative for the proper functioning of the democratic system. That is my idea.
Civil social activist and Vinivida Foundation convener, lawyer Nagananda Kodituwakku argues in a recent video that president Wickremasinghe has no moral right to take that decision, but that it is in accordance with an agreement reached between the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the UNP, and the JVP (represented by Anura Dissanayake, now National People’s Power leader) on September 20, 2017. Recently, Anura Dissanayake even appeared on a TNA stage in the north, according to him.
The NPP leaders say that their goal is to bring in a good government that is free from corruption and theft, and that establishes the rule of law. But that is the main platform on which even UNP’s J.R. Jayawardane fought the 1977 general election, pledging to bring in a Righteous Society (that has to date failed to materialise). The Island newspaper reported (February 2, 2023) that NPP MP Dr Harini Amarasuriya, asked about her party’s stand on Ranil Wickremasinghe’s decision to implement the 13A fully, said she didn’t believe he would do that, because he didn’t do it when he could do it. The NPP also believes that it should be fully implemented, though there was still a debate about this within the party. She told The Island:
“It has been presented as a solution to the national problem. It is already there in the Constitution and we believe that it should be implemented, but we have a debate whether it could be a tenable solution for the national problem. Our standpoint is that a government with genuine intention of addressing the issues of Tamil people must bring about solutions to the national problem, and we have no faith in other parties, but only the NPP could do that.”
It is not clear how the NPP is going to deal with the 13A issue. But if it is hoping to wangle the support of the Sinhala Buddhist masses while horse-trading with the federalists, Anura’s chances of becoming president will evaporate soon. As he has already apparently indicated that his prime minister will be Sumanthiran (I am not sure of this piece of gossip) in case he becomes president, the voters in the south will be even more sceptical about voting for him. Sumanthiran is the exact opposite of Lakshman Kadirgamar, that the Sinhalese universally loved, and honoured above all other politicians.
To return to Nagananda, he blames former elections commissioner Mahinda Desapriya for conniving at the TNA’s treacherous intentions revealed in its constitution. Desapriya had been given only the Tamil version of the TNA’s constitutional proposals, which he apparently couldn’t read and understand. He hadn’t asked for or they hadn’t given him the English version of the document (which means, according to Nagananda, they didn’t want its contents to be accessible to the Sinhala majority). Nagananda claims that he had some significant parts rendered into English: According to him, the TNA constitution (includes) “…… the right to self determination, the policy of founding an autochthonous Tamil State, Tamil Aru, and an autochthonous Muslim State, Muslim Aru, and thereby seeing the liberation of the political and economic aspects of the Tamil speaking people…….
Note: An absolute guarantee will be given to the right of religion and language of the minority national races that live in the autochthonous Tamil State that will be set up in the Tamil Motherland……..”.
(Incidentally, I do not agree with Nagananda’s explanation of the concept of the independence of the judiciary in this context.)
Now these autochthonous claims for Tamils and Muslims in Sri Lanka are ludicrous inventions. Authoritative historians (including Professors Karthigesu Indrapala and Kingsley de Silva) have shown that before the 13th century invasion by Magha of Kalinga, there was no Tamil kingdom in the north of Sri Lanka nor a settled Tamil population there. Tamils are the autochthonous inhabitants of Tamil Nadu in the mainland India. As for Muslims in the eastern province, they were settled there by king Senerath of Kandy (1604-1635 CE) as fugitives from Portuguese persecution in the coastal areas that they were occupying. Muslims and Portuguese were rival traders. The Sinhalese king also settled some of these Muslims in the central highlands. Still later the occupying Dutch and British brought Javanese and Malaysian Muslims, thereby adding to the growing Muslim population in Sri Lanka in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Implications of Nagananda’s revelations for the country need not be elaborated. He emphatically says that the ordinary Tamil people he met in Jaffna do not ask for a separate state. They only want to live in one Sri Lanka peaceably with the other communities.
Nagananda believes that the local government elections that are going to be held will not be of any value and that the Anura Dissanayake-led NPP is unlikely to win such a significant victory at imminent local government election. I personally think that the NPP appears to be the front runner, judging by the size of the crowds that attend its rallies (as reported on online media). But do these people know what the party leaders are really committed to, I wonder? There is no stamp of conviction on most faces, though. Most look sceptical of the leaders
We need statesmen/women, not mere politicians. People are fed up with the latter. Anura is not likely to turn out to be a real statesman, even if he gets the chance to do so one day, if he pursues his proven hypocrisy. However, compared to the leading buffoons of the two traditional parties (the UNP and the SLFP/or their ghostly modern reincarnations), Anura Dissanayake would be someone that the people can look towards as an alternative leader, provided he does not forfeit the trust of the majority Sinhala Buddhists in his attempt to win the loyalty of the traditional minority leaders, who will never ever change their spots, though they may change their hunting grounds.
Ranil Wickremasinghe has got his last chance to prove his statesmanship and retrieve his lost popularity and honour. He should not, as default president, abuse his executive powers to implement the long disputed 13A for the time being, but do whatever he can do to address the economic woes of our suffering masses before the current presidency ends. It is hoped that he will use his constitutional powers to achieve that end. Then let him call presidential elections and fight it himself or get his nominee to fight it on the single issue of the all important 13th Amendment, perhaps against a principal rival like Anura Dissanayake. Whoever it is, the next president must have the support of the active, truly educated youth of the country, not the half-wits now in the limelight.
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This is the second part of this series. Click here to read the part one
To assert, as Mr Sirimanne does, that “From ancient times the Northern region in the island was a kingdom occupied by Tamils due to its closeness to South India…….. during the reign of King Elara, a Tamil, there was a war between the Sinhalese and Tamil kingdoms…..” is completely wrong. It is a very irresponsible statement. The factual situation is that the young prince Dutugemunu of Magama in the south, after a long military campaign involving a series of hardwon battles, defeated usurper king Elara who had come from India as an invader. There had been no Tamil kingdom in the north or a permanent Tamil population in the north before the 13th century CE, as Professor Kingsley de Silva argues with evidence in his ‘A History of Sri Lanka’ (Penguin Books, London, 2005). Magha of Kalinga’s cataclysmic invasion with a massive army of twenty thousand Kerala and Tamil mercenaries and his ruinous occupation of Lanka for twenty-one years (‘moved thereto by the lust of wealth and power’ as the Mahavansa puts it), laid waste to the kingdom and the religion, and put an end to the achievements of the dry zone- based hydraulic civilization that the Sinhalese kings had built over the centuries. But during Magha’s reign ‘… there dwelt, scattered in the beautiful cities and hamlets that they had built for themselves in the great strongholds and mountainous parts of the country, some great and good men who defended the people and the religion from the disturber’ (Chapter 81 of the Mahavansa). This means that the Magha invasion caused the disintegration of the Lankan kingdom into a number of regional strongholds from which ‘great and good men’ (such as Subha Senadhipathi of Yapahuwa, a general, Sankha of Gangadoni, another military chief, and Bhuvaneka Bahu on the top of the Govinda rock) defended the rest of the country, until king Vijayabahu III of Dambabeniya’s son and successor, Parakrabahu II, was finally able to drive away the despoilers. In earlier times, South Indian invaders, when defeated and driven away, sailed back to India, but this time, Magha with his retreating army made a permanent Tamil settlement in the north.
Since a millennium before that time, the interactions between the island and the southern and eastern regions of the subcontinent were almost exclusively at the trade and cultural or religious levels, and the island’s sovereignty was not challenged. But occasionally, right from the earliest times, traders became invaders. Thus, as the Mahavansa (Ch.11 ) records, ‘Two damila (malabar) youths powerful in cavalry and navy, named Sena and Guttika’ (Sena and Guttika were horse traders with a fleet of ships.), after killing the reigning monarch Suratissa, who must have been very old by that time, ‘righteously reigned for twenty-two years’ from 237 to 215 BCE. But Suratissa’s youngest brother (most probably nephew) Asela defeated and put to death the usurpers, and restored Sinhalese sovereignty, and ruled at Anuradhapura for ten years. Then, another powerful trader (as recently concluded by historians) from South India named Elara killed king Asela, and ruled the country for forty-four years. But see how the Mahavansa (Ch. 11) records this event: ‘A damila named Elara of the illustrious “Uju” tribe, invading this island from the Cola country, for the purpose of usurping the sovereignty, and putting to death the reigning king Asela, ruled the kingdom for forty-four years, – administering justice with impartiality to friends and to foe.’
Following is how king Dutugemunu treated his fallen enemy king Elara, fully recognizing the latter’s noble reputation as a righteous ruler, though a usurper, as recorded in the Mahavansa Ch. 25: (Mr Sirimanne alludes to this episode in a rather offhand manner.)
‘Summoning within the town the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, within the distance of a yojana, he held a festival in honour of king Elara. Consuming the corpse in a funeral pile on the spot where he fell, he built a tomb there; and ordained that it should receive honours (like unto those conferred on a Cakkavatti). Even unto this day, the monarchs who have succeeded to the kingdom of Lanka, on reaching that quarter of the city, whatever the procession may be, they silence their musical band.’
(This royal decree is honoured by the Sinhalese Buddhists even today, after over two thousand years.)
Isn’t this something hard to come by in the history of war in the world, war being an ever present necessary evil, as it were, in human affairs? King Dutugemunu’s magnanimity in victory came from his Buddhist upbringing. At the beginning of his campaign against Elara, prince Dutugemunu declared: ‘This enterprise of mine is not for the purpose of acquiring the pomp and advantages of royalty. This undertaking has always had for its object the re-establishment of the religion of the Supreme Buddha…..’. (The country’s ancient Buddhist culture is a world heritage that must be protected.) The same compassionate and generous spirit was alive in the hearts of the young soldiers and their commanders who took part in the humanitarian operation in the north that put an end to the armed separatist terrorism in 2009. They could have brought the war to a quicker end and suffered a lot fewer casualties among themselves than they did, had they chosen to defy what was inherent in their cultural DNA. Unfortunately, the geo-poiltics driven superpowers have not recognized this fact, and have visited punitive afflictions on Sri Lanka for alleged violation of human rights that make life miserable for all Sri Lankans.
To return to my subject, geographical proximity no doubt was a factor in the stimulation of interactions between the two countries, but mass movements of population to and fro were not so easy as to be a usual occurrence. The fact that Sinhala kings sometimes brought queen consorts from South India (due to complicated succession problems that had nothing to do with the then existing demography of the country) is not something unique to them. Just look at the Wikipedia: The recently deceased queen Elizabeth II’s family tree has ancient roots in Germany, Denmark, Russia, etc.; but citizens of those countries do not seem to think of claiming that she was of their ethnicity or of assuming that the fact had any political significance.
Of course, as a result of these interactions, the Sinhalese acquired a great deal of Indian culture. But the important thing to remember while appreciating that fact is that over the past twenty-three centuries the Sinhalese have cherished their own language, their own distinct spiritual doctrine (Buddhism), and their island home with its rich abundance of recorded and unrecorded evidence of their prehistoric insular ancestry and their ancient Buddhist heritage. When it comes to sharing the natural resources of the land with minorities with different religious cultures, languages, ethnicities, etc. that joined them later in different contexts, there is no other race of people who are more humanely accommodating than the Sinhalese Buddhists in spite of the fact that they were the most persecuted community during the past half a millennium under the jackboot of three European colonial powers. Why were they singled out for such suppressive treatment? It was because the colonialists correctly identified the Sinhalese (under the benign sway of their spiritual masters, the Buddhist monks) as their only implacable enemy.
Traditionally, whenever the country and the Buddha Sasanaya were in jeopardy, the monks have come forward as defenders, on rare occasions even as armed soldiers. Warrior king Dhatusena who ruled at Anuradhapura from 455 to 473 CE, having defeated six Dravidian usurpers, was a Buddhist monk in his youth. King Senerath of Kandy (who reigned from 1604 to 1635 CE) was originally a monk. He disrobed to become king in order to try to rid the country of invading foreign powers. He fought against the occupying Portuguese and expanded the territory of his kingdom. The Sinhalese only thought of the country, the Buddha Sasanaya, and the commonality of people, not so much about their race. In modern times, sometimes Buddhist monks have cause to feel threatened by non-Buddhist extremists who forcibly enter the Buddhists’ religious space or when they vandalize or lay claim to ancient Buddhist archaeological sites (even violating the antiquities ordinances established in British times). It is natural that they try to raise awareness among the citizens about these things and to get the political authorities to set things right according to the law. People who have political or sectarian or religious axes to grind have no qualms about excoriating the monks and lay Buddhists for alleged racism, chauvinism, extremism, xenophobia, and so on, simply because they raise their voice against the covert and overt excesses of extremists that go undetected or unrecognized by local political authorities and the hostile foreign NGO brigade. Of course, it must be remembered that Tamil Hindus face the same threats from religious fundamentalists. Actually, Tamil Hindu and Sinhala Buddhist solidarity is indispensable for mutual protection from the proselytizing zealotry of mindless fundamentalists. Certain foreign funded NGOs and their local allies do everything possible to prevent the Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus from uniting for making common cause against unethical conversion projects.
Mr Sirimanne seems to imply that colonizing of Sri Lanka by three European nations happened as a matter of course, apparently unopposed by the native Sinhalese and Tamils, and that they somehow benefited from the experience. The truth is otherwise. Our people were massacred, our places of worship were vandalized, desecrated, burned down, or alienated to strangers or converts, while the country’s natural resources were plundered, and the sons of the soil were oppressed, downtrodden, and exploited. Because of this historical reality, for all the missionaries’ efforts of four and a half centuries, only about six percent of the local population had embraced Christianity/Catholicism by 1947, and the rest 94% had willingly forfeited all claims to possible material rewards by refusing to abandon their no less humanizing hereditary faiths.
At first, under the Portuguese, Sinhalese Buddhists in coastal areas embraced Christianity under duress, but later, as Mr Sirimanne says ‘Many Sinhalese in towns and cities for favors changed their religion and acquired Portuguese names’. Serving or saving the Sinhalese was not the real concern of the Portuguese. They thought of their own people back home, just as the foreign powers involved in our internal affairs currently do. Portugal at that time was not as resource-rich as Sri Lanka, its people were enjoying a far lower standard of living than the contemporary Sinhalese. Provocation for plunder was high. And it didn’t go unheeded. (See Dr Susantha Goonatilake’s ‘A 16th Century Clash of Civilisations: Portuguese Presence in Sri Lanka’, Vijitha Yapa, 2010) The Dutch who followed them introduced a network of canals for transport of local products for export for their own revenue, and introduced Roman Dutch Law for ease of administering the provinces they were occupying. It is true that in the course of time, these innovations became useful to the descendants of the people that they had indifferently robbed.
On February 4, 1948, Sri Lanka was granted dominion status (within the British Commonwealth) which was short of full independence. It was not something remarkable or memorable by any means. India was given the same status on August 15, 1947. But the wiser and more dignified Indian leaders implicitly eschewed the ‘benefits’ of membership of that body, and officially quit it on January 26, 1950, and asserted their country’s full independence, worthy of their many millennia of glorious civilization, which produced the great Buddhist emperor Ashoka, who introduced Buddhism to our country, and about whom H.G. Wells said: “……..amid tens of thousands of names of monarchs, “Ashoka shines, shines almost alone, a star” .
The patriotic progressive people of Sri Lanka under the leadership of Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike declared Sri Lanka a republic on May 22, 1972. Now that was a momentous occasion for the whole nation to celebrate. But it was less than an ideal choice to remain a member of the Commonwealth. Probably the choice was made for us by the powers that be. Has any special benefit accrued to Sri Lanka as a result? Has it done anything to relieve the suffering inflicted on the peaceful citizens for having defeated terrorism and saved democracy? Has it ever intervened on our behalf in such situations?
Mr D.L. Sirimanne ends his interesting article “Celebrating 75th Anniversary of Independence” (The Island/Opinion/January 18, 2023) with the following paragraph, which prompted this response:
‘It is almost 75 years since Sri Lanka obtained Independence from Britain and unfortunately the country was misruled and ruined by ignorant avaricious unpatriotic Sinhalese leaders fighting for power. It is now a bankrupt nation and 80% of the population is starving without food, fuel and medicine. It a disgrace to plan celebrating 75 years of ‘misrule’ as ’75 years of Independence.’ The 4th February 2023 should be a day of repentance and religious prayers to God, Allah and all the Devas to make Sri Lanka a prosperous and happy nation, with freedom and equality to all its multinational and multireligious citizens in the very near future.’
That within the last seventy-five years since the end of British occupation there have been some ‘ignorant avaricious unpatriotic Sinhalese leaders fighting for power’ is undeniable. We have living examples in the highest places even today. But to say that the country has been misruled and ruined solely by these unpatriotic Sinhalese leaders is a crass generalization that arbitrarily transfers all blame to the leaders of the Sinhala majority, while exonerating the few communalists among the minority politicians, who are actually even more responsible for retarding the forward march of post-independence Sri Lanka by adopting hostile attitudes to nationally beneficial changes proposed by Sinhalese leaders.
The Sinhalese voters, whenever they have the chance to do so, democratically elect their parliamentary representatives, hoping or requiring that they make laws for governing the country for the good of all its citizens regardless of multifarious differences among them. On every occasion that they felt persuaded that the leader who would be able to bring in necessary changes to transform the country so that this goal could be fully realized, they elected him or her with tremendous majorities, which were augmented by at least some votes from the minorities as well, such as when they elected Mr Bandaranaike in 1956, Mrs Bandaranaike in 1970, Mr Jayawardane in 1977, Mrs Chandrika Bandaranaik Kumaratungae in 1994, Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2010, and Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019. In all these cases, they were elected on a nationalist platform, not on a communalist basis. Although ordinary Tamil and Muslim voters are as fair-minded and as democratic as the ordinary Sinhalese voters, the ruling elite of each minority community rouse communal feelings among its polity against the majority for their own advantage, rather than for that of the community they claim to represent. The evil practice of political horse-trading between majority and minority politicians seems to have come to stay. Global and regional superpowers exploit this situation to push their geopolitical agendas at the expense of Sri Lanka.
Mr Sirimanne’s wish for ‘a prosperous and happy nation, with freedom and equality to all its multinational and multireligious citizens’ is what all right-minded Sri Lankans have shared and have been slowly but surely moving towards since 1948. The British adopted the infamous divide and rule imperial policy, which is still being used against us. The term ‘multinational’ is problematic for our small country in that it denotes a number of nations, which means it promotes division. To say that we are a multiethnic or multiracial and multicultural nation is better for establishing ‘freedom and equality’ for all Sri Lankans. They already enjoy these. If there are any lapses, they are common to all communities.
The solution is not to try to return to the alleged Utopia that the British are believed by some to have bequeathed to us at independence (for such wasn’t the reality), or to overlook the 1972 change as insignificant, but to make way for the young of the country today to make a correct assessment of what has been achieved and what has not been achieved by the previous generations since independence (who were no less patriotic, no less proactive than them) and forge ahead with new insights, new visions, and appropriate course corrections as our ancestors did during crises to ensure our survival for so long as one people in spite of manifold differences among us.
Concluded
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Our island was called Lanka in pre-King Vijaya times. Valmiki’s immortal Ramayanaya had King Ravana ruling the land from the city of Lankapura. That was almost four thousand years ago. The Arab traders termed it Jaziratul-Yaqut, island of rubies. Some called it Serendib, some Ceilan, from which the Portuguese picked Ceilao and the European mapmakers coined Ceylon. Many were the names from the many that came. Bar none, everyone agreed and noted in their chronicles that this Island was indeed the complete Paradise.
We never created it. Let’s be honest about that part. We simply inherited. The gods from their celestial dome, in their infinite kindness, gifted this Paradise to us, the beautiful island of Lanka, to the people of Sri Lanka.
The privilege of being born to such a serendipitous place can only be expressed if one could take away the corruption that has besieged us all since independence. We need to look through the veils of racial and religious disharmony that obscure the overwhelming beauty that lies beyond. The purity of the land still remains, vastly unspoiled. The occupants of Paradise, still smile, despite the battering they had received from the time they were reborn after the colonials left. Mother Lanka dawdles, whilst her sons and daughters drowse in ignorance, an ominous prelude to the torrential disasters that loom in the near horizon.
Times are sad and the question is paramount in any mind that carries an iota of sanity. “75 years, WHAT HAVE THEY DONE?” The sum total of the misfortunes that the majority of the proletariat suffer is directly related to the bad governance of the country. It is not the vegetable seller that is responsible nor the fisherman or the cobbler. It is neither the schoolteacher nor the clerical battalion. None of these Lilliputian shareholders of Paradise are responsible for the doom that is staring at us in gloom. Who is directly responsible for this megalomaniacal catastrophe? It must be the gods, not the ones from Mount Olympus but the ones from Diyawanna Oya. Everyone who sits in those 225 thrones, whether they were proposers or opposers or the ones who raised their hands in agreement or those who sinned in silence abstaining from their sworn duty. They are all responsible for raping this land.
The ‘misplacing of Paradise’ is directly related to Diyawanna Oya. It is from there the fountains of corruption gush out from every orifice to drown the trampled denizens of Paradise.
And now they want to celebrate 75 years of independent ruination?
Galle Face gave birth to the Aragalaya. It was not born to racial or religious parents, not to political surrogate fathers or international stepmothers. Hired ‘andabera karayo’ (announcing tom tom beaters) and unethical scribes may attempt to blacken the purity of the protest that raised its head when living in Paradise became unbearable. But such camouflage will not eradicate the deep-felt anger that has soaked the ordinary man, woman and child who walked to Galle Face to give life to the Aragalaya.
Their participation in the protest had nothing to do with politics. There may have been a thief or two in the jury, but the majority came because they could not breathe any more. The suffocation of the common man and woman who were down to their knees is what made them gather at the Galle Face Green.
The mighty may assume the Aragalaya has fizzled out. Many were arrested and some were jailed. The political pack was re-shuffled and puppeteers looking for those willing to dance were gifted high pedestals. Nothing changed at Diyawanna Oya. It is still the same stage, only some actors are different. Mother Lanka weeps at the perpetual tragedy.The once bubbling Aragalaya breathes softly like a slow-burning fuse. It is the idea that remains, and ideas do not die, nor can they be eradicated.
When the sun goes down and the pavements become bedchambers for the super poor who pray for the rains to hold till morning.
Little children hear the music of the ‘Choon Paan’ tuk tuk and wonder when they can afford a ‘kimbula bunis’ again. Schools re-open, book lists are out but where is the money to buy? Hospitals have no drugs; power cuts are a daily torment, and they talk about extending the dark hours.
Tourists trickle in while Srilankans of all races and religions are queuing in hoards to jump ship and vanish to wherever they can.
These are no fairy tales of my redundant imagination. They are the stories of Paradise. The day-to-day events play sad and silent along with the cacophony of achievements and flash-pan plans to celebrate 75 years of independence. Don’t tell me the suffering is isolated, oh no, not by a long shot. They are the unheard, the ignored and the expendables of the displaced congregation of Paradise. The ‘boast of heraldry’ is loud and clear, so is the ‘pomp of power’ announcing to the world and beyond the inflated paths of progress. The air is filled with milk and honey stories and rainbow visions for the morrow. But isn’t there a big question mark? Isn’t there some serious filtering needed to seek and give room to the truth?
I am not talking of March provincial elections or who is joining hands with whom to ruin the country more. Politics do not interest me. I’m like the kids that run after the ‘Choon Paan’ tuk tuk with empty pockets. Hope is there but with hardly any reality. Just totally confused between right and wrong and where lies the light or is it only a long dark tunnel? I’m writing of the core expectation, the very basics that humans search for. We need peace and honest governance, the pursuit of happiness to which we are all entitled, like the simple ‘Kimbula Bunis’ the kids crave for. This is what Paradise should be made of, which unfortunately is missing. Yes, our Paradise is mired in a total political mess at present devoid of any reasonable and practical answers.
Everyone is trying to go abroad. Why do all these people leave Mother Lanka? Something must have gone wrong in the system. The exodus only began after we were reborn as an independent nation. Ludowyke and Van Sanden left in the sixties, Somasundaram and Gunesekara in the eighties the entire ‘jimband’ started migrating at the turn of the century. Hence, the blame is not with the colonials and their international shackles. It is ours and ours alone, lying firmly in the Pontius hands of the custodians who were chosen to charter our future. Isn’t it crystal clear today that the political leadership we voted for and sent to Diyawanna Oya has failed miserably in their delivery?
Let’s get back to the theme of the hour, the forthcoming independence celebration. I wonder what we are celebrating after 75 years of ruling by the sons and daughters of mother paradise. Is it the egg that is 75 rupees or the half kilo of dhal selling at 300 or the loaf of bread at 180? Maybe the 170 for the Sunlight soap has to be celebrated and the red onions at 720 a kilo. The coconut is over 100 rupees and a mere 400 gram packet of Rathi milk powder is 1,200 rupees.
No wonder the children are almost starving, and the parents roll onto a reed-mat after a hard day’s work on empty stomachs.
Yet we are celebrating independence to tell the world how great our Paradise is. Never mind the begging bowl we carry internationally; on 4th morning the marching multitudes and the rolling armour must be on display. The cost of the aerial circus will be astounding. There will be at least 4 sets of different aeroplanes flying in formation over the heads of gods and demigods sitting under VVIP shade at the Galle Face green which is the scene of celebration.
You have to practice flying these air-displays. From a week before the 4th you will hear their engines roar from Kalutara to Katunayake.The jets shrieking, training for the fly-pass, will shatter the clear blue skies and disturb every student writing the ‘A’ level exams in that area. The F-7 fighter-jets in this aero-ballet burn 40 liters of fuel a minute at low levels. And we the minions of Paradise loiter in snaking ques down below with our QR codes to get 20 liters of fuel for one week. If I call it a mockery, that will be gross flattery. Need to mint a new word to describe this folly.
Do I have to say any more? We the majority may be struggling for the crumbs that fall off the table, but the show must go on. After all it is independence, and it must be celebrated.
There are some solid silver lines too in our 75-year-old dark cloud. The free education is a wonderful achievement and so is the free health care scheme. Yes, at present the hospitals may struggle with the lack of drugs, but the system is there to help and heal any patient. The credit goes to the powers that were in a bygone era. There are other consolations too, one cannot be totally paranoid. Factory jobs are there for those without a trade. Stitching for Marks and Spencer and their likes help thousands to keep their home fires burning.
Some no-skills Paradisians pawn their souls to go abroad as domestics and for minor employment. They are the local Dick Whittingtons charging into the unknown, exploited at every toll gate. They slave in alien third-class status to send pitifully earned dollars to their loved ones to survive in Paradise. Wasn’t it their brothers and fathers who fought and died in the 30-year war to save their motherland?
Seventy-five years have gone by from the day of independence. The blameless blame, the nameless suffer and the shameless go on, rough-shodding their way to erode and annihilate Paradise. No need to further elaborate, the reasons are obvious. Some things are best left unsaid. Let me be the coward and let discretion become the better part of my limited attempts at journalism.
Call me a fool if it pleases you and I will accept it. But let me trickle some sanity to your thoughts. Just to kindle an interest. Totally non-political. I cannot and do not separate the villain from the venerated. The line is too thin, and the facts are wildly scattered. The truth certainly is in masquerade.
The Lankan Paradise is not lost, at least, not yet. It is certainly misplaced. That much can be clearly seen, lest one be blind. What happens in the end to things that are misplaced? They never get found and as time goes by, they will go permanently missing.
Ours is a Paradise misplaced. Let us all valiantly search for answers, it is not too late. Let us collectively find ourselves and our land, before it vanishes beyond the limits and becomes a Paradise Lost.
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First of all, let me express my sincere respects to Mr D.L. Sirimanne, the writer of the interesting article entitled ‘Celebrating 75th Anniversary of Independence’ (The Island/Opinion/January 18, 2023). He struck me as a venerable old man, who, at 103 years of age, still thinks about the welfare of his fellow Sri Lankans. It is rare for a person of that age to be so clear-headed and lucid in his writing. His generous spirit and his literary activity may be one reason for his healthy longevity, I think. His mention of retired aviator turned writer Elmo Jayawardana, whom I highly admire for the same altruistism of character and the same literary gifts that Mr Sirimanne displays, made me check out whatever other information is available about him online. Actually, I had never come across the name D.L. Sirimanne before I read his Sat Mag feature in The Island ‘An epic Air Ceylon charter flight…….’ on October 24, 2020, which I re-visited today and which enabled me to relive the delightful experience of reading it. I also watched an old TV interview uploaded to the You Tube, featuring him. We have very few unsung heroes like Mr Sirimanne. It was time well spent, I thought, although I do not share his views about the history of Sri Lanka, the hallowed and historic homeland of the Sinhalese, their inalienable Motherland, or his opinion about the primary cause of the economic mess that Sri Lanka is currently undergoing. But the old ghosts he recalls in the otherwise excellent essay that he’s written had better be exorcized once and for all, for denigrating the majority Sinhalese community and belittling their history which is synonymous with that of their island home, based entirely on wrong assumptions, will definitely undermine all attempts to bring political stability, economic prosperity, and intercommunal harmony to Sri Lanka.
Please rest assured, Mr Sirimanne, my writing this will not detract in the least from my deepest admiration for you. You are not wrong in holding the views that you are sharing with the readers, given the time that you spent your youth, the most vibrant years of your life. It is only that times have changed, new discoveries have been made in science leading to the emergence of new technologies, and corresponding advances in the ever expanding universe of human knowledge, including such domains as astronomy, psychology, social sciences, art, culture, politics, history and archaeology and so on, in the light of which we are developing a better, more accurate idea of our past among other things. Something that has not changed, though, as far as our country is concerned, is the interfering ghost of departed Western colonialism, that is largely responsible for our problems.
The fact that we are surrounded by the ocean has determined the nature of our evolution as an independent civilization, and the character of our commercial, cultural and political/diplomatic relations we have had with the outside world. As island dwellers, quite naturally, we have always been wary of foreigners though we have always treated them hospitably; we have been always independent spirited, and protective of our land, and our Buddhist culture. Before the depredations of European occupation, we, as an island nation had an extensive global reach on account of trade and our Buddhist spiritual culture. Groups of people and individuals travelled into as well as out of the island in connection with the last mentioned. The main body of the original inhabitants of the island were saved from being numerically overwhelmed by the influx of large numbers of immigrants from the relatively less hospitable or less inhabitable lands around, due to the sea barrier. Foreign commercial-cum-military powers that made incursions into the island from the legendary Vijaya to the British mercantile/imperial power at the end of the 18th century had first come as traders, attracted by the natural riches of the country. (According to new scientific findings in historiography and archaeology, the legendary Vijaya and the later invader Elara who ruled at Anuradhapura (205-161 BCE) were actually connected with trade.)
Mr Sirimanne seems to come from the minuscule Westernized,English speaking, Christian ‘elite’ society, the comprador class of the native population, that lived in relative comfort and probably didn’t worry too much about independence from the British.They were akin to the ‘mimic men’ in Trinidad-born English novelist V.S. Naivpaul’s novel by that name, who tried to be what the imperial British did not allow them to be. But this was at the expense of the vast mass of the downtrodden colonized ‘natives’, who were subjected to flagrant exploitation and relentless dehumanization, something that reminds me of what journalist and novelist Robert McCrum says about the lack of moral justification for the comfortable lifestyle of the rich upper crust of the Anglo-American society today: “No one dwelling in comfort on the higher ground of Anglo-American society should ever forget that a brutal trade in human lives was a motor of the British and American economies throughout the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth century….”. (Globish, Viking, 2010). McCrum, of course, is referring to the slave trade.
In the case of Sri Lanka and its large northern neighbour India, this period of European imperial exploitation became most virulent for the two centuries from around the mid-18th to the mid-20th century. (It looks as if, in the West dominated global media, this history is being fast sanitized.) Former Indian diplomat and writer Dr Shashi Tharoor (who served at the UN for twenty-nine years, ending his stint there as Under Secretary General), in his ‘INGLORIOUS EMPIRE: What the British did to India’ (Scribe, Melbourne and London, 2018) tells the thoroughly researched true story of the British in India – from the arrival of the East India Company to the end of the Raj – and reveals how Britain’s rise was built upon its plunder of India. However, the careful reader understands that Tharoor’s purpose is not to narrate a sequence of events and tell a story as such, but to critically study the legacy the British left in India and to demolish arguments that try to support claims for alleged benefits of colonial rule. (However, Tharoor does not deny that the British did leave, incidentally though, a few treasures, such as a democratic form of government, and the English language.) Delhi-based historian William Dalrymple’s ‘THE ANARCHY: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company’ (Bloomsbury Publishing Company, London, 2019) is a riveting narrative that tells the story of how the (British) East India Company transformed itself from an international trading corporation into something quite different: an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business run by English merchants collecting taxes from the impoverished natives using a ruthless private army.
Sri Lanka is very small compared to India in terms of area. India is roughly 46 times the size of Sri Lanka and its population roughly 64 times. But internationally, we are accepted as an independent sovereign state similar to India that enjoys full fledged membership of the United Nations. There is nothing unusual about this. There are dozens of countries with even smaller populations than ours, such as Burkino Faso, Chile, Malavi, Mali, Romania, Zambia, etc., that stand as independent sovereign states. We are not, by any means, inferior to India as a sovereign nation.
To liken Ceylon (or Sri Lanka) to ‘a brilliant emerald on the beautiful pendant of Mother India’ is to imply that our country is/was an appendage of India! It never was, but present day Indian politicians appear to wish it was, and even to behave as if it already is, and some of our own worthless unpatriotic politicians seem to agree! How can a Sri Lankan celebrate a ‘Mother India’, instead of Mother Lanka? To be colonized by foreign invaders is not an experience that can be or should be forgotten with glib talk. No self-respecting nation in the world will relish that humiliating experience. We are a people with an honourable history. Our country has been called Sihele or Sivhela or Sinhale or Sinhaladipa (the europeanized ‘Ceylon’ is a derivative of Sihele), or Lanka, as it is often referred to in the 5th century CE Mahavansa or the Great Chronicle and as it is usually called in colloquial Sinhala even today, and Tamilized as Ilankei. (Incidentally, all the quotations from the Mahavansa and its continuation the Cuavansa found in this essay are from Mudaliyar L. C. Wijesinghe’s translation of 1889.)
Sri Lanka had survived 17 invasions from South India before the European phase of colonization actually started at the beginning of the 17th century (1602), though the fortuitous arrival of the Portuguese happened almost a century earlier in 1505. The Portuguese were in Sri Lanka till they were driven away in 1658 by the Dutch, who in their turn gave way to the British in 1796. The British helped themselves to the maritime provinces of the country previously occupied by the other two European powers. All these invasions and occupations met with the fiercest resistance from the native Sinhalese population. They did not bring Tamils from South India to fight these wars. Jayantha Somasundaram claimed in an article published in The Island a couple of months ago that the Sinhalese did not go to war against invaders because as Buddhists they did not want to kill. This is a deliberate falsehood. Of course, it is true that when there was internecine strife, Sinhalese kings sometimes brought in mercenaries from South India as when Mugalan did in order to challenge his half-brother Kasyapa of Sigiriya in the 5th century CE. Invader Magha of Kalinga brought an army of Kerala mercenaries (according to Chapter 80 of the Mahavansa (in the form of Culavansa written in the 13th century CE by a Buddhist Bhikkhu named Dhammakitti) to fight against the ruler of Lanka at the time Parakrama Pandyan of Polonnaruwa in 1215 CE. By the time of the British advent at the end of the 18th century, the interior part of the island formed the Kandyan kingdom or the diminished kingdom of Sinhale hemmed in all sides by occupied territories; but it had itself repeatedly and heroically foiled European military occupation. It was only through subtle diplomatic intrigue that it was annexed to the British Empire in 1815.
Even my father (who was of Mr D.L. Sirimanne’s generation), though he was no historian, scoffed at the implausibility of the Mahavansa story about prince Vijaya. “How could we be descendants of a lion, an animal, and still be humans?” he used to say. He also ridiculed the Aryan claim in the Hitlerian sense. He only believed in the word ‘Arya’ as it is used in Buddhism, that is, to refer to a spiritually advanced person. But Mr Sirimanne seems to have no issue with the ‘Aryan’ identity of the Sinhalese, who had allegedly come from Sinhapura in North India. Mr Sirimanne believes that the tribes that inhabited the place when prince Vijaya landed at Tambapanni, known as Yakkas and Nagas, were ‘probably Hindus from South India’. He has left out the Devas and the Rakshas, the other two of the four indigenous tribes who are believed to have inhabited the island then.
However, the Vijaya legend must have a nucleus of historical truth in it. It might be based on an actual invasion by a north Indian prince, who initiated a dynasty that imported princes from the mythical Sinhapura to rule at Tambapanni. The subject Yakkas’ Sinhalese identity must have derived from the natural admixture at that stage of the native Yakkas with the members of the invading north indian ‘Aryan’ clan. There definitely had developed a struggle between the invaders and the local elite over sovereignty by the time of the death of king Panduvasudeva (who reigned at Tambapanni from 504 to 474 BCE). In fact, Pandukabhaya (born in 474 BCE, the year his grandfather died) who ascended the throne at Anuradhapura after a protracted military struggle against his uncles is considered the first truly Lankan monarch (but the 6th king overall) since Vijaya. The Mahavansa story (found in Ch. 10) about the emergence of Pandukabhaya features a number of real Yakkhas and Yakkhinis, who are shown to be as much human as those who had come from Sinhapura (though they are presented with a supernatural touch.)
But today we know for sure that the Yakkas were the real ancestors of the Sinhalese (Kuveni was a Yakka princess), and that they were also contemporaneous with the Veddas. The fake classification of the Veddas as ‘aadivasin’ (aborigines) by Western anthropologists was probably meant to deny the Sinhalese their autochthonous origin in this island. Yakka language inscriptions have been found and deciphered, one of which, according to archaeology Professor Raj Somadeva, declares “api yakku” we are yakkas. The Mahavansa says that the missionary Mahinda Thera preached Buddhism ‘in the language of the islanders’, which was undoubtedly, the Yakka language, the ancient version of Sinhala, that was in circulation then.
The most powerful factor, next to genetics, that distinguishes one race from another is its language. In the case of the Sinhalese it is the Sinhala language with its unique vocal sound system, its own grammar and vocabulary. (Words like vatura for water, vee for rice paddy, haal/sahal for(rice, bath for cooked rice, kamata for threshing floor, gala for rock, and so on are original Sinhala words, not borrowed from any other language; another original Sinhala word is ‘wewa’ (turned into Pali form in the chronicles as waapi)), meaning an artificial water reservoir constructed by building a dam across a valley for storing water for agricultural irrigation during rainless months. However, down the ages, contact with the North Indian languages of Pali or Magadi and Sanskrit has heavily hybridized the Sinhala vocabulary. This is the reason why Sanskrit-derived Hindi and Bengali languages sound more familiar and are more easily intelligible to the Sinhalese than the Dravidian languages of South India such as Tamil or Malayalam (a few elements from the last two can also be detected, particularly in spoken (non-formal, non-literary) Sinhala…
Continued
Source: The Island
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The sovereign default announced by Sri Lanka on 12 April 2022, was the cumulative result of fiscal folly over many years. This writer has attempted to uncover the root causes of our ‘sovereign predicament’ in a series of interviews with international media between January and July 2022; a curated version of which could be accessed online1.
Two in-depth studies by this writer published in 20162 and 20173 prognosticated what was clearly a looming disaster. These were published in academic journals in 2016 and 2017, they were orally presented at the Inaugural Nagalingam Balakrishnan Memorial Lecture4 in Colombo on 21 June 2014, and at an international conference organised by the Centre for Poverty Analysis5 (CEPA) in Colombo from 1 to 3 September 2014, respectively.
The purpose of this essay is to highlight the specific blunders by successive Governors of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and members of the Monetary Board since 2006 that has led to the current crisis, and hold them accountable for their actions and/or inactions over a period of 16 years (July 2006-April 2022). Authority and power come with accountability and responsibility.
A couple of retired senior Central Bank staff (retired Deputy Governor of CBSL Dr. W.A. Wijewardena6, and retired Director of Statistics at CBSL Dr. S.S. Colombage7), independent Economists, and many other professionals (for example, Sanjeewa Jayaweera8) have repeatedly and publicly forewarned the Central Bank and the Treasury of Sri Lanka about their risky and wrongful policies since 2006 (if not before). Yet, successive Governors and Monetary Boards have not heeded saner counsel.
This study offers citations/references that amply demonstrate where the fault lines were and who was directly or indirectly responsible for patently risky and wrong policy decisions.
Global best practices in central banking in brief
The independence of the Central Bank is a foundational imperative in an open market-led economic/monetary system. As a corollary, there must be a strict separation of powers between the Treasury/Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of a country. This demarcation is as important as the insulation of the judiciary from the executive and the legislature.
Countdown to sovereign bankruptcy in Sri Lanka
The very first breach of the independence of the Central Bank and its autonomy viz the Treasury occurred in the late-1990s when Sri Lanka graduated in to the lower middle-income country in 1997 and thereby gained access to borrowings in the private international capital markets. The Secretary to the Treasury was made an ex-officio member of the Monetary Board of the CBSL by the then President of Sri Lanka Chandrika Kumaratunga. A.S. Jayawardane was the then Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
Although Sri Lanka was eligible to borrow from the private international capital markets in 1997, the very first such borrowing was in 2007 through the issuance of an International Sovereign Bond (ISB) to the value of $ 500 million. The then Opposition Leader and current President of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe9, wrote to the joint lead managers of the debut float (Barclays Capital, HSBC, & J.P. Morgan) in 2007 that a future government of his would dishonour repayment of the same.
After the election of Mahinda Rajapaksa as President in November 2005, Ajith Nivard Cabraal was appointed as the Governor of the Central Bank in July 2006. It has been the practice to appoint the senior-most Assistant/Deputy Governor to the post of Governor of the Central Bank since its inception in 1950 until President Premadasa appointed Dissanayaka as the Governor in 1992. Dissanayaka was a civil servant in the Ceylon Administrative Service (and its successor Sri Lanka Administrative Service) and was a Deputy Secretary to the Treasury prior to his appointment as the Governor of the Central Bank in 1992.
For the first time in the history of the CBSL a versatile book keeper assumed the role of Governor of the Central Bank in 2006. This appointment of a person who had scant regard for demonstrated and proven principles of central banking put the integrity of the Central Bank in peril.
The decline of the technical competence and integrity of this premier institution was apparent to all but the ruling crony class.
This writer learnt that there were deliberate actions taken by the newly appointed Governor to weaken the technical competence and integrity of the Central Bank by way of side-lining senior competent professional staff such as the then Head of Economic Research, Dr. H.N. Thenuwara, and the then Head of Statistics, Dr. Anila Dias Bandaranaike, among others. Such arbitrary, irrational acts of the new Governor resulted in the premature retirement/departure of Dr. H.N. Thenuwara, Dr. Anila Dias Bandaranaike, Rose Cooray, and the like from the Central Bank. Governor Cabraal wanted a compliant and subservient staff and a pliant Monetary Board as opposed to technically competent and upright senior staff with professional and personal integrity.
The year 2006 marked the beginning of severe politicisation of the CBSL never seen before in the history of the Central Bank since its establishment in 1950. It was not just the beginning of the politicisation of the Central Bank, it was also the beginning of the politicisation of the entire banking and financial sector including the private banks. The modus operandi of such politicisation was as follows. The CBSL under Cabraal utilised the EPF/ETF funds to purchase shares in the two largest private commercial banks. Commercial Bank of Ceylon (Com Bank) and the Hatton National Bank (HNB), and thereby secured memberships in the Board of Directors of such banks to park the retiring senior Central Bank officials such as Assistant/Deputy Governors. For example, Dr. Ranee Jayamaha (former Deputy Governor of CBSL) was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Hatton National Bank, and Dheerasinghe (former Deputy Governor of CBSL) was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Commercial Bank of Ceylon after their respective retirement from the CBSL. The foregoing appointments could have caused conflicts of interest (if not illegal). The justices of courts of law are barred from practicing law after retirement in order to prevent conflict of interest during their tenure as judges. In a similar vein, senior executive staff of a Central Bank should also be barred from working in the financial sector post retirement.
The aforementioned appointments in the largest private commercial banks were made to influence/encourage those banks to borrow foreign exchange from private international capital markets to lend to the Government for its ambitious prestige infrastructure projects, inter alia, for what former Central Bank Governor W.D. Lakshman called the “developmental state”. (See the justification for such politicisation of the entire banking and financial sector by Dr. Weligamage Don Lakshman, one of the successors to Governor Ajith Cabraal (July 2006-January 2015) and the predecessor to Governor Ajith Cabraal (October 2021-April 2022), in 2020. Lakshman, 202010
Similarly, the CBSL under Ajith Cabraal directed state-owned commercial banks such as the People’s Bank and the Bank of Ceylon (BoC), and the state-owned specialised bank, National Savings Bank (NSB), to borrow foreign exchange from private international capital markets to lend to the Government for its ambitious prestige infrastructure projects as well as to fund capital expenditures of the state-owned public utilities such as the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB), a state-owned enterprise such as the SriLankan Airlines, and crude oil purchases of the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC). (See, Sarvananthan, 201411, for example)
Such Central Bank-directed external borrowings by state-owned banks, private commercial banks, and state-owned utilities/enterprises between 2006 and 2014, inter alia, have undermined the overall financial sector stability, increased the precarity/vulnerability of such semi-government and private financial enterprises, and contributed to the overall volatility of the external public debt portfolio of the country by way of underestimating the real total external liabilities of the Government.
Policy milieu of the CBSL during 2006-2022
The Government’s direct borrowings through the issuance of International Sovereign Bonds (ISBs) and indirect borrowings through state-owned banks (such as syndicated loans) and utilities/enterprises (with and without government guarantee) currently account for over 50% of the total external debt of Sri Lanka. The borrowings by the state-owned banks and utilities/enterprises on explicit government guarantee are called “contingent liabilities”12 of the government in fiscal parlance.
The ISBs bear the highest interest rates (between 5% and 9% in the international borrowings of Sri Lanka (see, for example, CBSL, 201213) among all the available external borrowing mechanisms (bilateral, multilateral, and private international capital market borrowings) to any country. Moreover, the repayments of ISBs are relatively short-term (5-10 years) without any grace period for the commencement of repayments. However, one advantage of ISBs is that borrower has to pay only the interest payment annually, and the entire capital is repayable only at maturity, which gives some breathing space for the borrower.
Between 2007 and 2019, borrowings in the private international capital markets were the primary mode of external borrowings for successive governments of Sri Lanka, in which borrowings do not require justification or do not come with strings attached (conditional upon economic policy reforms or political governance reforms).
Ironically, certain press releases of the CBSL during 2007-2008 explicitly acknowledged that the proceeds of the ISBs were not only utilised to pay for certain infrastructure projects (such as the Hambantota port and southern highway) but also to retire some of the then-existing domestic debt that bore very high-interest rates (between 15% and 20% or higher) (see a series of articles by this author in Montage14 (current affairs magazine) edited by Frederica Janz at that time for criticisms of such external borrowings of the government/CBSL (unfortunately, we could not access the press releases of the CBSL before 2012 on their website now).
In order to lessen the burden of short-term repayments of the ISBs, inter alia, successive Governors of the Central Bank have artificially kept the exchange rates quite stable thereby artificially overvaluing the domestic currency, the Sri Lankan rupee (LKR). This was the key policy blunder that led to the eventual sovereign default of the country in April-May 2022. The Central Bank’s frequent interventions in the foreign exchange market to prop up the rupee also contributed to heightened imports of consumption goods (including luxury motor vehicles, for example), especially during the period 2010-2019.
By keeping the value of the rupee artificially high by fixing the exchange rate/s for prolonged periods of time (years, not weeks or months) through frequent interventions in the foreign exchange market by the Central Bank, Sri Lanka’s exports were artificially overvalued (thereby undermining global competitiveness) in dollar terms, and earnings from tourism were suppressed. These were on top of the loss of the GSP+ facility for exports of goods and services to the European Union (EU) in the early 2010s. However, the GSP facility for Sri Lanka was restored in 2017 but is currently once again under intense review by the EU for the past couple of years.
The severe negative impact of the managed floating exchange rate system practiced by the CBSL (as opposed to free float) is reflected in the fact that the exports of goods and services as a percentage of the GDP in Sri Lanka, in US dollar terms, that was 39% in 2000 and 32% in 2005 fell to mere 17% in 2021 (second lowest since 1960 after just 15% in 2020 due to the pandemic)15.
Were the forgoing of exports and tourism earnings for white-elephant infrastructure projects and retiring of domestic debt rational and prudent management of the external finances of a country? To the best of the knowledge of this author, no sane government in any country would dare to borrow externally in the private international capital markets to retire its domestic debt in spite of the fact that domestic debt directly contributes to inflation.
In addition to the folly of wanton borrowings through ISBs, the then Central Bank Governor Cabraal, and the then members of the Monetary Board (all political appointees) were singularly responsible for the losses incurred on hedging for crude oil imports16 and investments in ill-fated Greek Bonds17. The then Governor and the members of the Monetary Board have never been made accountable, to date, for such losses to the country. These past impunities have contributed to continued irrational and imprudent policy decisions of the Monetary Board (all political appointees), the chairperson of which is the Governor, that eventually resulted in the sovereign default in April-May 2022.
By the time the Rajapaksa regime lost power in January 2015, Sri Lanka’s external debt position had already become precarious. The person who replaced Cabraal as the Governor of the CBSL in early 2015, Arjuna Mahendran, was once again from the international private sector though much more educated than Cabraal. However, Arjuna Mahendran also lacked professional and personal integrity like Cabraal, which resulted in the Central Bank of Sri Lanka bond scandal18. Arjuna Mahendran was removed from office in 2016 by the then President, Maithripala Sirisena, and replaced by Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy on 2 July 2016. Dr. Coomaraswamy possessed both educational qualifications and professional cum personal integrity to be the Governor of the Central Bank.
Whatever external borrowings made by the Government between 2015 and 2019 were almost entirely to make repayments of the external borrowings, especially ISBs, made during the period 2007 and 2014. The new President elected in November 2019 appointed “Emeritus Professor” W.D. Lakshman as the 15th Governor of the Central Bank effective from 24 December 2019. In spite of being a former “Professor of Economics” at the University of Colombo, Dr. Lakshman lacked the necessary exposure to the complex world of global commerce and the finer intricacies of international finance.
Dr. Lakshman was an ideologue of a forgotten era. He was a lifelong critic of international financial institutions such as the IMF. Unsuitable to head the Central Bank of an emerging lower-middle-income open economy. Dr. Lakshman was the third worst Governor, after Ajith Nivard Cabraal and Arjuna Mahendran, the Central Bank of Ceylon/Sri Lanka has had in its entire history, though the former is professionally an honest person as opposed to the latter two. Dr. Lakshman’s lifelong pathological aversion to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) played a critical role in Sri Lanka’s procrastination to seek an IMF bailout.
By the time Dr. Lakshman was appointed the Governor in the closing days of 2019, Sri Lanka was shut out of the private international capital markets because of the repeated negative reports about the precarity of Sri Lanka’s sovereign bonds by global credit rating agencies such as the Fitch Group, Moody’s, and Standard & Poor (S&P) Global Ratings. Therefore, since the beginning of 2020, the CBSL was forced to borrow only locally in addition to several ad-hoc short-term currency swaps with Bangladesh, China, and India, a few bilateral credit lines from China and India, and one-off loans from Japan and South Korea.
Money printing and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Ironically, whereas a Central Bank’s role is to be a lender of ‘last resort’ to the government, under the governorship of Dr. Lakshman the CBSL became the lender of ‘first resort’ to the government by buying unprecedented levels of government securities, which literally meant printing money.
While the dogmatic/theoretical inspiration for printing unlimited money is drawn from the fallacious Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), the practical lessons Dr. Lakshman19 cites are from Japan and the Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs) such as South Korea and Taiwan in the aftermath of the World War II, which he dub as “developmental states”.
Dr. Lakshman, during his academic days, has publicly accepted corruption as a necessary evil during any country’s early stages of “take-off”, citing rampant corruption in Korea and Taiwan during their take-off period. I remember him juxtaposing corruption and successful developmental states as a classic chicken and egg conundrum at a public seminar held at the Dr. N.M. Perera Centre in Colombo several years ago, in which this author was a co-panellist.
It is true that Japan, Korea, and Taiwan were developmental states (as opposed to market-driven states) during the early stages of their “take-off”. However, the global political and economic context during the immediate and medium-term post-World War II (i.e. 1950s, 1960s, & 1970s) period wherein victorious western powers regarded the aforesaid countries as bulwarks against communism raging throughout East and South East Asia did play a pivotal role for the resurgence of Japan as an economic powerhouse and the emergence of the so-called tiger economies (ala Korea and Taiwan).
Hence, just because Korea and Taiwan were “developmental states”, Sri Lanka, for example, cannot emulate those “economic miracles”, through a developmental state. This author would argue that third world countries like Sri Lanka need what Prof. Rainer Kattel, et al, calls “entrepreneurial state”20.
Two underlying cardinal principles of MMT are that as long as the public debt is denominated in domestic currency, a government need not worry about unlimited domestic borrowings because domestic currency could always be printed thereby avoiding a public debt default (i.e. states have “monetary sovereignty”), and that unlimited money printing ‘does not’ cause inflation! Both are fallacious according to mainstream economic science in general, and monetary theory in particular. (See, for example, Coats, 201921; Drumetz and Pfister, 202122; Hartley, 202223; Palley, 202024; Prinz and Beck, 202125)
In his oration to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Central Bank of Ceylon/Sri Lanka on 28 August 2020, Governor W.D. Lakshman promotes the idea of developmental central banking, deviating from the core functions/objectives laid out in the Monetary Law Act of 1949 and amendments thereof made in 2002. Implicit in his 70th anniversary oration was the justification for unlimited printing of money. Dr. Lakshman has been strenuously denying publicly that the printing of money causes inflation. One of Dr. Lakshman’s former students at the University of Peradeniya and later a lecturer in political economy in the same university (long retired), Sumanasiri Liyanage26, has publicly supported the printing of money by the Central Bank in January 2021.
Ajith Cabraal27, who once again functioned as the Governor of the CBSL between October 2021 and April 2022, propagated the myth in April 2021 that money printing does not cause inflation parroting the then Governor Lakshman. During the previous stint of Governor Cabral (at the CBSL) between 2006 and 2014, Dr. Lakshman was an “Adviser” at the Ministry of Finance. Cabraal had a history of shouting/shooting down negative reports by international credit rating agencies28 on Sri Lanka’s creditworthiness since 2006 to date.
The over-stock of money in the market (as a result of money printing by the central banks worldwide), in the absence of a commensurate rise in production (primarily due to lack of demand), depreciates the domestic currencies resulting in hyper-inflation29 (including food inflation). In Sri Lanka, in the 21-month period between 1 January 2020, and 30 September 2021 (during Governor Lakshman’s tenure), due to excessive money printing30 by the Central Bank, the stock of money rose by 38% (i.e. by Rs. 2.9 trillion) whilst the GDP grew only by just 1%. This has caused inflation to rise to over 11%, and food inflation rose to over 18% in November 2021.
These have seen steady rises ever since; resulting in the overall inflation, in terms of Sri Lanka Consumer Price Index (SLCPI), at its peak 74% in September 2022, and the food inflation at its peak 86% in September 2022. During the last quarter of 2022, however, both the overall inflation as well as the food inflation have begun to decelerate.
Both Cabraal and Lakshman have unrepentantly deviated from the holy grail of central banking31, i.e. policy-making in the interest of the “public” as opposed to policy-making in the interest of the government in power or the politicians.
The poor performance of Dr. Lakshman as Governor of the Central Bank is emblematic of poor standard of economic professors in Sri Lanka in particular, and poor pedigree and pedagogical practices of Sri Lankan academics in general. The tertiary level economic curriculum in Sri Lanka requires urgent and substantial revision and upgrading from outdated and irrelevant contents.
Theories of physical sciences are not subject to political or social circumstances, contexts, situations, or territories; that is, the outcomes of physical sciences theories are universal. In contrast, the outcomes of macroeconomic policies/theories vary according to the political and social circumstances, contexts, situations, and territories. Thus, right macroeconomic policies should be adopted taking into consideration of the individual political and social circumstances, contexts, situations, and territories. Just because advanced industrial countries were printing unlimited money for prolonged periods during the pandemic, any developing country cannot afford to print unlimited money for an indefinite period of time to revive its pandemic-affected economy.
Lessons to be learned from sovereign bankruptcy in Sri Lanka
It is high-time the proposed new Monetary Law Act (MLA) in Sri Lanka explicitly and clearly define the qualifications and experiences required for the post of Governor of the Central Bank, members of the Monetary Board, and the members of the Stakeholder Engagement Committee (SEC). The SEC was established in July 2022 amalgamating the former Monetary Policy Consultative Committee (MPCC) and the Financial System Stability Consultative Committee (FSSCC). Moreover, the post of Governor and memberships in the Monetary Board and the Stakeholder Engagement Committee should be openly advertised and recruited and ‘not’ arbitrarily appointed by the President and/or the Governor (in the case of appointments to the Monetary Board & SEC).
While the independence of the Central Bank is sine qua non, there should be necessary checks and balances to prevent abuse of power, corruption, nepotism, and the like in the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in recruitment of staff, consultants, etc., and transparency in the policy-making and decision-making processes. Moreover, Central Bank’s frequent paternalistic diktats to the commercial and specialised banks (including to the private ones, let alone the state-owned banks) and unnecessary interferences in the financial sector in general (under the euphemism of “moral suasion”32) should be tamed (if not done away with) in the proposed new Monetary Law Act (MLA). Every single public authority (e.g., Central Bank Governor, Treasury Secretary, Monetary Board) in Sri Lanka should be made accountable and responsible not only to the parliament, government, and the executive in power, but more so to the general public as well.
Sri Lanka cannot emerge out the current economic quagmire without broader financial sector reforms such as divestiture of the state-owned commercial banks (People’s Bank and Bank of Ceylon) and specialised banks (National Savings Bank) which function as captive sources for funding public debt (both domestic and external) as well as funding perennially loss-making state-owned utilities (Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB)) and enterprises (SriLankan Airlines, Sri Lanka Railways, Sri Lanka Transport Board, Road Development Authority, etc.).
According to a report of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) of the parliament of Sri Lanka, state-owned banks (i.e. Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank) have complained that they have been repeatedly ordered by the Central Bank to fund the CPC and CEB during 2020-2022. Moreover, in the investigations into the Central Bank of Sri Lanka bond scam of 2015, it was revealed how the CBSL coerced the People’s Bank to back off from bidding. The forensic audit report of the CBSL in the aftermath of the bond scam of 2015 is yet to be made public. This kind of non-transparency cannot assuage the domestic markets or potential foreign investors.
The state-owned banks have also become primary lenders to unscrupulous politicians from all political parties, especially members of parliament and deputy/ministers, who are involved in variety of businesses such as owning liquor shops and fuel stations throughout the country, and involved in construction projects (public works) for public and quasi-public authorities.
We understand that one of the conditions the IMF has put forward for its proposed bailout of Sri Lanka is enaction of a strong anticorruption legislation in parliament. This is just a cosmetic exercise. There are enough laws in Sri Lanka already to arrest corruption; what is lacking is the political and/or administrative WILL to enforce such laws or the law/s are applied only selectively to penalise the political opposition.
In addition to any new legislation, the IMF should insist that an international forensic audit of the personal finances (bank accounts, movable and immovable property, income tax filings, etc.) of each and every member of parliament (including both government and opposition) and their extended family members, and each and every public servant (especially executive grade) (including armed forces personnel) and their extended family members should be carried out and appropriate legal actions taken if their wealth and income cannot be accounted for or justified.
Even today, under a new Governor and management, some of the actions of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka smack of duplicity and double standards in law enforcement as reflected in the recent permanent “revocation” of the license of the Prasanna_Money_Exchange_Pvt_Ltd33 and merely a temporary “extension of the suspension” of the trading of Perpetual Treasuries Limited34, which was the executor of the Central Bank bond scam of 2015. It is important to note here that the Perpetual Treasuries is owned by the son-in-law of the then (2015) Governor of the Central Bank, Arjuna Mahendran.
If Angola35, where the Supreme Court in December 2022 ordered the seizure of $ 1 billion worth of assets of the daughter of the former President and freedom fighter Jose Eduardo dos Santos, and Mozambique36, where the Maputo City Court in November 2022 found a son of the former President and 18 other “high profile defendents” guilty of $ 2 billion illicit foreign loan with government guarantee that bankrupted the country could do it, why not Sri Lanka?
Although, in principle, we welcome the public appeal by 182 Economists worldwide37 on 8 January 2023, urging the hedge fund holders of International Sovereign Bonds (ISBs) of Sri Lanka in particular, and of all the third world countries in default in general, to cancel such debt, in practice any such debt cancellation initiative should be conditional upon barring all those politicians, bureaucrats, and professionals who were responsible for the sovereign default (by their actions or inactions) and who were directly or indirectly involved in the Central Bank bond scam and other mega corruption from holding any public office hereafter. If not, any unconditional and unilateral debt cancellations would become a moral hazard for countries such as Sri Lanka.
Footnotes:
1https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LFQz1Wpqj68_MFVp6tGSRtx7liFBr8H-DFze-1WfLzo/edit.)
2https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-015-9637-3
3https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0169796X17735241
4https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bd9VMNMfAZZEYfiyfP4v6jf8XelKSA0z/edit
5https://www.cepa.lk/events/annual-poverty-symposium/13th-cepa-symposium-post-war-development-in-asia-and-africa/
6https://www.ft.lk/w-a-wijewardena-columns/A-Child-s-Guide-to-Modern-Monetary-Theory-Keynesianism-in-an-old-bottle/885-710459
7https://www.ft.lk/columns/Money-printing-to-repay-Govt-debt-worshipping-MMT-is-likely-to-magnify-economic-instability/4-710612
8https://island.lk/sri-lankas-economic-quagmire-and-how-margret-thatcher-smashed-the-keynesian-consensus/
9https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/wikileaks-bond-issue-2007-unp-will-not-be-able-to-honour-repayment-ranil-wrote-to-jp-morgan-barclays-hsbc/
10https://www.cbsl.gov.lk/sites/default/files/cbslweb_documents/speech_20200828_70th_anniversary_oration.pdf
11https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jSY81CmYvMwQSJ-_z9J5OXyFXuTax9ZWPU5nPZyUMY8/edit
12https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/1999/03/polackov.htm#:~:text=Contingent%20explicit%20liabilities%20are%20legal%20obligations%20for%20governments,on%20future%20government%20finances%2C%20and%20complicate%20fiscal%20analysis.
13https://www.cbsl.gov.lk/sites/default/files/cbslweb_documents/press/pr/press_20120717_democratic_socialist_republic_of_sri_lanka_us%24_1_billion_international_sovereign_bond_issue_e.pdf
14https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vCuAxDR7JGBB6pMD7EuDQ-8ppoChlPeBAvjftytSxsQ/edit
15https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS?locations=LK
16https://www.reuters.com/article/srilanka-oil-hedging-idUSL3E8M25SI20121102
17https://www.sundaytimes.lk/120708/news/cabraals-gamble-lanka-loses-billions-in-bankrupt-greece-5565.html
18https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Bank_of_Sri_Lanka_bond_scandal
19https://www.cbsl.gov.lk/sites/default/files/cbslweb_documents/speech_20200828_70th_anniversary_oration.pdf
20https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/publication/1981807/7
21https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2019-09/cj-v39n3-4.pdf
22https://www.intereconomics.eu/pdf-download/year/2021/number/6/article/modern-monetary-theory-a-wrong-compass-for-decision-making.html
23https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-weakness-of-modern-monetary-theory
24https://www.elgaronline.com/view/journals/roke/8-4/roke.2020.04.02.xml
25https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11293-021-09713-6
26https://www.ft.lk/Columnists/MMT-What-s-wrong-with-printing-money/42-711087
27https://island.lk/cabraal-no-relationship-between-money-printing-and-rupee-depreciation/
28https://www.cbsl.gov.lk/sites/default/files/cbslweb_documents/press/pr/press_20210112_unwarranted_rating_action_by_S%26P_e.pdf
29https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/is-the-world-economy-going-back-to-the-1970s/21805260
30https://www.ft.lk/columns/Budget-2022-What-s-the-missing-link/4-726282
31https://www.bis.org/publ/othp04.pdf
32https://www.jstor.org/stable/134345
33https://www.cbsl.gov.lk/sites/default/files/cbslweb_documents/press/pr/Press_20221212_Revocation_of_the_money_changing_permit_issued_to_Prasanna_Money_Exchange_Pvt_Ltd_e.pdf
34https://www.cbsl.gov.lk/en/node/13817
35https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/12/28/angolan-court-orders-seizure-of-dos-santoss-assets-lusa-news-agency
36https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/30/mozambique-court-hands-out-verdicts-in-2bn-corruption-case
37https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/08/hedge-funds-holding-up-vital-debt-relief-for-crisis-hit-sri-lanka-warn-economists
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“If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.” Sun Tzu
“But it turns out there isn’t really any military threat by the United states. Not only [has the U.S] and NATO run out of normal military arms, but America really can’t mount a land war anymore. There will never be another Vietnam. There will never be the United States invading another country, or Europe invading any other country, because you’ll never get a population willing to be drafted, [since] the anti-war movement. And without that, America has only one military leader against other countries: the hydrogen bomb. There is nothing in between a targeted assassination attempt and an atom bomb.” Michael Hudson &Radhika Desai
Both [Russia and China] are strong — and Russia is more advanced technologically than China in their advanced offensive and defensive missile development, and can beat the US in a nuclear war as Russian air space is sealed by layered defenses such as the S-400 all the way to the already tested S-500s and designed S-600s….Beijing’s strategic priority has been to carefully develop a remarkably diverse set of energy-suppliers. If China has so far proven masterly in the way it has played its cards in its Pipelineistan “war,” the US hand — bypass Russia, elbow out China, isolate Iran — may soon be called for what it is: a bluff.Pepe Escobar
****
Come on, Russia “can beat the US in a nuclear war.” Really? Even President Valdimir Putin decried the use of nuclear weapons. According to Reuters, “Putin said…there could be no winners in a nuclear war and no such war should ever be started.” For how nuclear war between the two nation states might pan out go visit Princeton University’s Science and Global Security website. There you will find an unsettling computer simulation known as PLAN A that assesses “the consequences of nuclear war under different assumptions. Attack scenarios are constrained by the size and capabilities of existing arsenals and weapons systems including delivery vehicle range, the footprint of the Multiple Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV) that carry nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles, and hard target kill capability. The simulation tool incorporates an atmospheric transport model to assess nuclear fallout for each attack scenario.
TheNord Stream pipelines have been destroyed. My guess is that it was US Navy DEVGRU guys and a Virginia Class submarine that carried them in. Right up their alley. That was no bluff, I think.
There is no antiwar movement in the United States that has any influence on US military or political actions. But there are soldiers who are bored, doing drugs and aching for war. “This is what happens when there is no war, no direction, and an 18-month red cycle with no mission,” a Special Forces soldier said. “So dudes are fucking around…and the craziest drugs. All these lives ruined because people are just bored.”ConnectingVeterans
That young soldier may not have long to wait to cure his boredom on the battlefield killing “the other” in Ukraine.
Cracks in the BRICS
Multipolarity? Belt and Road Initiative? Forget about it for now, or for the foreseeable future. For those notions to be birthed a global war will have to take place to dislodge the United States.
The BRICS? Consider that Brazil has severe internal problems: poverty chief amongst them. There is also the threat of a coup and so it could be tough for the new president (Lula) to hang on. How about China? I doubt it as China fears a confrontation with United States, as it is a large holder of US Treasury notes. If a war came, they would never receive their payout. Further, China has not fought any major wars recently and thus their military is untested. Already, the US is crushing their semiconductor chip market through economic warfare.
India? They have a long standing territorial rivalry with China and are very wary of Chinese espionage and instigating on its borders. India’s poverty level is off the charts, compared to Brazil’s. It may be the largest democracy on the planet but it society still runs a caste system and tensions between religious sects (Hindi, Islam) is a real problem. And let’s not forget about Kashmir. According to Wikipedia, “Today, the term encompasses a larger area that includes the Indian-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.”
And Russia? Well, it is already fighting United States’ weapons systems, operational contractors, ISR aircraft, CIA operatives, and US defense contractors/mercenaries. When the US sets up a no-fly zone over Western and then Eastern Ukraine, it’ll be just a couple of steps, or mistakes, until full scale ground combat between the US and Russia takes place. Already, there are reports that the US is considering arming Ukraine with long range missiles that can reach Crimea. Russia stands alone against the West, a west that does not understand that Russians view the war as an existential crisis. Their way of life is threatened. And the Satanic hatred that Americans and Europeans have toward Russia is astonishing but it is engendered by Western governments and their hatred is broadcast by the MSM, an MSM which is owned by wealthy corporations, who, in fact, tell their populations how to think.
The US Military Just Sits Around?
So, according to critics, the US government/military is a ghost of itself and unprepared for industrial war and/or a per opponent. Let’s check that assumption out. We’ll turn to the US Congressional Research Service’s (CRS) “Renewed Great Power Competition: Implications for Defense—Issues for Congress”
US defense strategy is currently designed to prevent “the emergence of regional hegemons in Eurasia.” That strategy is based on US policy maker’s assessments (dating back to President Obama’s administration) that Eurasia is not “self-regulating” in that the countries of Eurasia can’t be relied upon to use their forces to stop a country that wants to dominate the region. That is viewed as a threat to US policymakers. For example; if China wanted to control, by force, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, who would rally to stop them? Would the Shanghai Cooperation Organization step in the way? No, the USA would.
So, the US defense department’s force structure is designed based on a “policy decision” made in Washington, to inhibit by threat or action an attempt by China or Russia to overrun other nations in Eurasia or the Pacific (think Taiwan). That means it has the capability to deploy military assets far afield from the US mainland (and from forward bases; e.g., Qatar, Bahrain). The package includes long range bombers like the B-2 and B-52; a naval battle group that includes, for example, a Nimitz Class carrier, Virginia Class submarines; Aegis warships; troop transports by air (C-10) and sea (Marine amphibious assault ships), ISR capabilities (RC-135V, satellites and drones).
Fighting Russians in the American Desert
For the past few years now the United States has emphasized planning that focuses on high-end conventional warfare, according to CRS. “Many DOD acquisitions, exercises and warfighting experiments have been initiated, accelerated, increased in scope, given higher priority, or had their continuation justified as consequence of the renewed US emphasis on high-end warfare.” For example, a warfighting experiment is taking place at the US Army’s Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert. A mockup of an urban town you might find in Ukraine , along with open terrain that surrounds the town, has been built. The Red Team uses Russian tactics to try and defeat the US Blue Team using its combined armed tactics (drones and electronic warfare are a key part of the exercise).
A peaceful multipolar world? I don’t think so.
Russia can’t create one alone.
Russia is as ready as it can be for the US boots on the ground in Ukraine. It will stand alone while its “friends” watch. And the USA knows for the first time in decades it will have to fight to get to the fight. Hard times ahead.
It is going to be a violent road to get to a multipolar world where nations don’t act ruthlessly in their own interests. I wish I could live to see how it all ends. Don’t we all?
Find and Read Please, Dig Deeper
How the US military is shaping the environment for Ukraine and wider war: Military Information Support Operations, MISO, Joint Publication 3-13.2
The US has astronomical power. Study them here: Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare. FM 3‐05.130
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