Editorial

Next week, the nation will raise the Lion flag, sing the national anthem, watch the country’s armed forces parade and schoolchildren will dance while the soothing strains of religious chanting commemorate the 74th year of Sri Lanka regaining its Independence from 443 years of foreign rule.

The country is in bad shape, no doubt. Undoubtedly, there have been advances as there have been setbacks over the past seven and half decades, but at least the people are free from the yoke of colonial domination, and masters of their own destiny.

Or are they, really?

After a gruelling world war, battered and bruised but victorious, the once Great Britain passed the Ceylon (Independence) Bill granting this country Independence on February 4, 1948. The first Prime Minister of an independent Lanka, D.S. Senanayake addressed the nation with the words; “Today is a special day…. the control of our Lanka has again come back to us”. A former Prime Minister, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was to refer to the need of the hour being to win economic freedom having won political freedom.

Unfortunately, their political successors were unable to live up to the expectations with which this nation awoke on that historic day 74 years ago. The journey since 1948 has not always been smooth. There have been potholes, rocks and boulders, landslides, tsunamis and insurrections on the way but one might justifiably ask if this is the worst period its people are facing even surpassing the economic downturn in the first part of the 1970s and the dark period during the northern insurgency that went on for three of the seven and a half decades.

If the early 1970s saw ships anchored in out-harbour and people lined up for essential items all around the country, a foreign exchange crisis like that of today and rice in short supply, today’s economic crisis can be considered far worse in that the country is caught in a vicious cycle of borrowing from Chang or Singh to pay Peter or Paul. Hanging on by a virtual thread, the entrapment by way of the foreign exchange crisis resulting from the shortsightedness of recent political decisions – and a pandemic, has got not only future generations mortgaged to foreign lenders but in the process, parts of the country mortgaged for decades to come. The danger is that many of those who were partly responsible for this situation are the very ones now in charge of extricating the country from this abyss.

Overseas, they are not toasting Sri Lanka’s Independence but roasting the country on allegations of human rights abuses, and with corruption rampant and almost chronic, there’s no visible plan either economic, political or in foreign policy to stem the haemorrhaging. At least in the latter, there appears some movement with the Minister of Foreign Affairs — ironically not the Minister of Defence or the Minister of Internal Security — introducing a Bill to amend the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), under pressure from Western powers. One gets the feeling that the country is sliding down a slippery slope and there’s no one there. There’s little reason to celebrate in these circumstances.

Still, the country has faced such vicissitudes before and the otherwise resilient people will surely overcome the difficulties as the Government and the people confront this ongoing economic firestorm.

It also does not mean that the nation cannot be proud of some of the achievements since Independence, not least holding steadfast to the ideals of democracy; universal adult franchise continuing since 1931 with elections to a Parliament representative of the people; the continuation of welfare programmes like free education and free health that even advanced economies fall short of, however difficult it has been to pay the bills for it; a judiciary that has from time to time shown its spine and opposed dictatorial tendencies of power-hungry politicians; a military now castigated in some quarters both locally and abroad that defended democracy thrice – in 1962, 1987-89 and 1976-2009, and generally avoided going down the path of military dictatorships that many countries in newly independent Asia, Africa and Latin America fell prey to.

This is also a time for the nation to honour those patriots from all communities who fought for Sri Lanka’s people to be born free and not as colonial subjects like themselves. Apart from the initial resistance way back in the 16th century, the local population played by the new rules of the colonisers, accepted their plight as their karma until some began to resist foreign domination. Occasional uprisings were quelled by gunpowder. History is also replete with fifth columnists and treachery, as there is today – those locals who helped foreign powers subjugate this nation.

The year 1915 was probably the watershed. The colonial British exploited an inter-communal clash to slam the nascent freedom movement of the time with the sledgehammer of Martial Law. Court Martials headed by military officers sent scores of those in the forefront to jail, some for life. Sinhalese, Tamil and Burgher lawyers defended those accused of treason. Buddhist organisations and newspapers were banned. A 29-year-old Sri Lankan officer was executed by firing squad.

Yet, the inexorable currents were already set in motion for Independence. 1915 was the catalyst that gave a fresh impetus for the final lap in the hands of men and women from all communities marching towards the same goal under the united banner of the Ceylon National Congress with the Lanka Sama Samaja Party separately, one the pacifist, the other the radical.

There are those who prefer a different narrative. They say the Sri Lanka freedom struggle merely rode on the back of the Indian movement; that it was World War 2 unleashed against British Imperialism by Germany in Europe and Japan in Asia that weakened the British Empire and paved the way for Independence in India, Burma, Ceylon and Malaya. And there are also those who argue that Sri Lanka’s ‘real’ Independence came only in 1956 when it closed the last British military post, or in 1972 when it became a Republic.

Interesting as these discourses may be, February 4, 1948 remains a day embedded in history; a day for the nation to pay homage to its patriots of the past, and a day to reflect on what they gave their life for – for the people of today and tomorrow.