Sunday Times 2
The Revolution that bypassed its makers
The seasonal crocodile tears over Dry Zone peasants consuming dried leaves for survival have been shed. Pelting monsoonal showers are now reported to be over parched lands. Soon there will be harrowing reports of these unfortunate people seeking refuge from flood waters in temples and schools on elevated lands with marauding elephants destroying their deserted homes. This is live ammunition for politicians opposed to the Yahapalana government, instead of the usual mud flung around with elections round the corner.
Everyone says the country is in a severe ‘crisis’. But no viable solutions are forthcoming. Mahinda Rajapaksa, who threatens to kick open the doors of power soon, speaks of a solution in gibberish, not in real intelligible language. He appears to be fighting shy of his Mahinda Chintanaya that he touted for a near decade in power. His solution – formula — (‘soostharaya’ in current political lingo) is: Rajapaksa, Rajapaksa, Rajapaksa and still more Rajapaksas. There are enough of them to fill the cabinet, parliament, ministries, departments, embassies and diyawadane nilame posts in devales where the money is. This ‘soostharaya’ didn’t work earlier but the aging politico seems to be believing that Old is Gold.
Ranil Wickremesinghe is attempting to push ahead with overtones of neoliberal Singaporean ideologies. It has worked well in some East Asian countries but it is stillborn here. Even before a proposal is made, the Rajapaksa hordes are out on the streets bawling: Menna Rata vikunanada hadanawo (They are going to sell the country). No longer ‘Young’ Sajith Premadasa is continuing to lay foundation stones and open buildings down Hambantota way while declaring open model villages in other parts. At least, he is doing something concrete, say his supporters.
Meanwhile, the crisis keeps zooming. The mighty dollar and COL rockets up while the debt burden threatens to entomb the nation. Last week, with the dollar rocketing and threats of cutting imports, even the Chattering Classes were worried and kept asking: So, what to do aney? The best persons to provide an answer will be our politicians, particularly those who staged the ‘Great Social Revolution of ‘56’ (if they are still alive) and the babes of this ’56 Revolution who were born within a few years before and after the event. The fathers of the Revolution governed and ruined the country since ’56 and some passed on the reins to their sons to govern and misgovern. These politicians together with the crankiest ever president America is now saddled with are the cause of our ‘crisis’.
In earlier times there was a solution to any economic problem: Throw out this mixed hodgepodge of socialism and capitalism. Nationalise every damn thing and skin capitalists alive on the Galle Face Green.
The Capitalists are still there and the former Marxists have joined their Gurus — Marx, Lenin and Engels in their dialectical heaven. Their sidekicks the Sons of the ’56 Revolution most of whom have not cleared O-Levels have only one vision: Rajapaksa,Rajapaksa and Rajapaksa.
Last week some pundits at a night talk show while blackguarding Ranil and Sirisena solemnly declared that the only solution was ‘development’. But what to develop and how it could be done was lost in new Sinhala doublespeak — speakers sounding erudite but talking balderdash.
There is much potential for development within the country only if our rulers look around them. Other than massive infrastructure projects like international stadia, harbours and airports with other perks attached, there is agriculture development which D.S. Senanayake launched much before Independence. But today our farmers are in a terrible plight as reports from the Dry Zone recently indicate.
The farming community — a great many of them — has been made to suffer the rigours of drought and floods continuously without effective remedial action. Of the five great forces identified for the success of the ’56 Revolution, farmers (Govi) with their numbers were the greatest contributors. Their living standards have not improved but worsened. Living in fragile thatched huts in desolate areas during day and night they have to be on the watch out for killer wild elephants in search of food after being displaced from their jungles.
Crop insurance, which is common to most farming communities in other countries, has been barely heard of. Marketing, storage facilities, new technologies and the like are the new avenues of development that other Third World countries have successfully resorted to. But these appear to have gone over the heads of the Babes of 1956. Successive governments have done much for the Dry zone peasantry in the form of massive irrigation schemes, fertiliser and other agriculture subsidies but that is not enough as the present situation indicates.
The Great ’56 Social Revolution has bypassed the country’s peasantry who, 62 years ago, played a key revolutionary role. It is a revolution betrayed.