Deteriorating Situation In Sri Lanka
It’s the unfortunate period of political and acute economic crisis in some countries of Indian Sub- continent.
Afghanistan reverted to Taliban rule from 15th August 2021 but after so many months common man is struggling for fulfilling his basic needs and children too are suffering on nutrition front.Women in general , even after loss of many of their sisters, are no longer hesitating to raise their voice openly. But there appears no end to high inflation, shortage of essential items and medicines and little hope for a package to rescue the shattered economy.
Pakistan while facing similar challenges has got entangled in the lust of power again, subsequent to fall of Imran Government.While being still confined to Grey list of FATF, they are trying to get assistance of IMF as also Saudi Arabia.But latter may not relent so easily.New Pak P.M. could not woo the Crown Prince ,rather he got brickbats from his own citizens at Madinah.
In Sri Lanka ever since Gotabaya Rajpaksha became President in November 2019, he has gone for massive tax cuts on the one hand and complete ban on use of Chemical fertilizers to encourage organic farming,on the other.
As a result, credit rating of the country by international organizations has gone down drastically and foreign exchange position too is causing serious concern.
The nation of 22 millions is also reported to have defaulted on a staggering $51 Billions of foreign debt.
Two waves of Corona too have played havoc with once sun shine sector of domestic tourism and the country was forced to close many of its missions abroad. Inflation in no time has picked up momentum and shortages of power,fuel,cooking gas etc. began emerging. Cost of living has become unaffordable with soaring food prices. No wonder, some have begun skipping a meal each.
Who had to bear the maximum brunt in three countries ?
Obviously the women folk and the infants ,who have begun feeling the pinch of regular protests.
In Sri Lanka, the non-violent protest became violent by 31st March.The following day a State of Emergency had to be declared for the second time.
While the President was relatively new to the power game, political acumen and more than a decade old experience of the former President Mahinda Rajpakshe,who took over the mantle of Prime Minister, has proved ineffective with the passage of time.
Situation began deteriorating and by second week of April ,thousands of Sri Lankans were forced to march to the President’s residence to press for his resignation.
While resignation of PM Mahinda was a foregone conclusion after murder of eight persons and injury to over three hundred protesters, his rescue in the wee hours to a naval base in Trincomalee was unprecedented. Even closure of main road to Colombo airport for a day was unusual.
Now that efforts to form a national government are not resulting into any positive outcome, even new P.M. ,73 year old Ranil Wickremsinghe has not been found acceptable so far,despite his five earlier stints as P.M.
Chaos and confusion rules the roost between pro and anti Government protesters. Students are now taking the lead role.
Curfew is being partially lifted to permit purchase of left over essential consumer goods.But all said and done, new P.M. can not manage to keep the country together with the feeble support of a few smaller parties.
On the other hand, for China, the neo imperialist, it may be a win win situation sooner or later. They have sizable investments over here. One can imagine the continued adverse repercussions on health and education sectors all along. May be, children there too are caught between on line and off line syndrome.
More than that special powers given to Army and Police is bound to be misused.
So far Indian citizens in Sri Lanka have not been targetted akin to the situation during the reign of former President Jaywardane, when first round of action against LTTE with the help of IPKF had failed.
It remains to be seen whether the present level of tolerance against the Indian citizens and Tamilian Sri Lankans may continue for some more time.
Dr.Aaloc Srivastav,
IAS(R),
Ex-C.S,Sikkim