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It is a paradox without parallel that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa saw fit to invoke the names of Sri Lanka’s great kings and their liberation struggles against ‘foreign invaders’ on this 74^th Independence Day while his Government has, through foolhardy economic and political choices, accelerated this nation’s gravest existential crisis since independence

Politicians must forsake their podiums

This is a ‘celebration of independence’ that has lost all meaning in a backdrop where such events are generally not regarded by the public with much enthusiasm. Sri Lanka’s political establishment may clap and cheer but the reality on the streets is different. The national flag is seen fluttering only in political processions, there is no patriotic fervour to speak of. If politicians forsake their podiums and listen to the public, this is what they will hear. Contrary to the hearkening back to a glorious past of kings and whatnot, we have been made most vulnerable to regional and international intermeddling, through the outright sale of national assets to foreign nations through midnight gazettes or otherwise.

In that sense, the President’s message this week conveys very little to an unimpressed citizenry witnessing Sri Lanka’s financial and foreign ministers trotting around with a begging bowl to neighbours, pleading for money to survive the day. These are not travails that we can entirely blame on the devastation caused by the global covid-19 pandemic. We are begging, after all, for support from countries in the region who have also faced that same pandemic. But this is perhaps the one country with policy makers both supremely arrogant and extremely foolish to prescribe an overnight switch to organic farming in the middle of the worst pandemic that the world has seen in living memory.

So on top of habitually making the international news for all the wrong reasons, the country is now being (shamefully) cited as an object lesson to others on the harsh pitfalls that follow such hasty experiments.  As the Dohai based Al Jazeera news channel put it bluntly, Sri Lanka has announced ‘compensation for more than a million rice farmers whose crops failed under a botched scheme to establish the world’s first 100-percent organic farming nation’ (‘Sri Lanka to pay $200m compensation for failed organic farm drive’ 26 January 2022).Is this not more squandering of public funds that we do not have? When will this madness stop?

Endless chain of avoidable disasters

Meanwhile vainglorious shows of military strength costing what we can scarcely afford only brings to mind, the hypocrite who decks himself out in fine clothes in public while surviving on bread and water at home. Except, of course, in this case, it is the ordinary people who are forced to subsist on water alone as bread has become too costly to buy. Then again, water itself may become a scarce commodity as drought grips the land, making our rivers full of dried, caked mud and the people endure power cuts as a fuel emergency hits with consequent fall out on water supply.

This is an endless chain of avoidable disasters that cannot be glossed over by empty Presidential rhetoric of ‘positivity’ and ‘victorious journeys.’ In fact, the comedic stupidity of the State on full display would be entertaining if it did not have such deadly consequences. The national grid is switched off even in the midst of the Minister of Power promising that there will not be any interruptions in power supply, his colleagues cry ‘sabotage’ and the Justice Minister threatens to ban strikes, later backtracking to say that ‘trade unions ought to be regulated.’

Electricity trade unions had been protesting over the sale of nearly 40% of shares of the Yugadanavi Power Plant, Kerawalapitiya to the US energy firm, New Fortress. It was later disclosed that relevant documentation had not been placed before the Cabinet and that irregularities were rife in the transaction causing major concerns in regard to the security of the country’s national energy suppliers. Doctors and railway workers had also resorted to strike action in recent months over alleged failures to rectify anomalies in wages and internal transfer procedures.

Waving a red flag at enraged trade unions

The right to strike is part of legitimate trade union activities as stipulated in international labour conventions, It constitutes part of the freedom to form and join a trade union under Article 14 (1)(d) of the Constitution though the right to strike is not specifically protected as such. Ministerial calls to regulate trade union activities is a red flag to an enraged bull at this point in time. That said, the knee jerk action of trade unions to strike in the first instance and not as a ‘last resort’ is unacceptable. Particularly where doctors are concerned, this right must be availed of, with careful thought to distress caused to patients.

Some years ago, a National Association for the Rights of Patients also called for a ban on strikes by doctors and requested the Government to provide for this by law. That group was relying on the practices of highly proactive consumer rights bodies in India with healthy public interest jurisprudence enforcing duties upon hospitals and doctors based on the right to life expressly contained in the Indian Constitution. The argument was that the right to adequate health comprises an essential part of the right to life.  Several thought provoking judgements have been delivered in this regard by the Court.

In one instance, seven government hospitals in Calcutta who refused to admit a seriously injured agricultural labourer during a trade union action were warned to be more responsible about patient care. Similarly, other decisions by the Court have established the rights of patients as consumers to protest with regard to questions of inadequate health care. Even so, it must be reiterated that waving one’s hands about and issuing threats is not the answer to manifold problems that Sri Lanka faces more than seven decades after freeing itself from colonial shackles.

A more considered approach to governance is warranted

In other words, the Justice Minister’s call to ‘regulate’ if not ‘ban’ (what is in a name after all, as the Bard may have remarked), the right of trade unions to strike is much of the same nonsense that has led us to a governance crisis in the first place. A more considered and measured approach must be taken, from the President and Ministers downwards. The President’s emphasis on responsibilities and not only rights this Friday is not only applicable to citizens; if one finger is directed at them, two fingers point back at his own Government.

That is a caution that the Presidency and the Government would do well to keep in mind.