Labour and Globalisation: Union Responses in India

 Introduction

The first major shock of what subsequently came to be called globalisation in India was the economic liberalisation programme initiated in July 1991. The Congress government headed by Narasimha Rao, faced with a crisis resulting from foreign exchange reserves sufficient for just a fortnight’s imports, undertook some of the measures recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in the late 1980s. The new policy included abolition of licensing procedures for manufacturing investment (which had popularly come to be known as a corruption-ridden ‘license-permit raj’), reduction of the high import tariffs on most goods (but not consumer goods), liberalising terms of entry for foreign investors, and liberalising capital markets (Balasubramanyam and Mahambare, 2001). It would be a mistake to see these changes simply as being imposed on India. Many of them were designed to encourage the expansion of big business after what were perceived as decades of stagnation, for example by removing restrictions on mergers and acquisitions, encouraging businesses to seek finance abroad, and sparking a wave of expansion into new sectors which had either barely developed (e.g. telecom), or had until then been reserved for the public sector (e.g. banking). 

The next milestone was the birth of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 1 January 1995, with India being a member from the beginning. This involved new pressures, for example to eliminate quantitative restrictions on imports, simplify and reduce tariffs, reduce export constraints, reduce the number of activities reserved for the public sector and small-scale sector, further liberalise the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) regime, and address the fiscal deficit (cf. WTO, 2002). The process of integrating India more closely into the world economy has been more or less continuous since 1991, despite changes of government, and the world economy itself has globalised rapidly during this period.

The Way Forward in Sri Lanka

The way forward in Sri Lanka involves demilitarisation, restoration of the rule of law, and democratisation. These are interlinked so closely that it is impossible to separate them, and on their fulfilment depends not only the political future of Sri Lanka, but also its economic survival. 

Setting the Record Straight

I was surprised to see that a piece I wrote recently for Groundviews was mentioned prominently in two articles in The Island last Saturday and Sunday. Since the original article was not published in The Island, and since the rejoinders misrepresent my argument in various ways, I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.

For those who would like to read the original article in full, it can be found at www.groundviews.org/2009/06/22/why-are-the-vanni-civilians-still-being-held-hostage/ . My basic argument was that the denial of freedom of movement to the Vanni IDPs and incarceration of them in internment camps (1) was a violation of their democratic rights as citizens of Sri Lanka; (2) was an insult to the soldiers who risked (and in some cases lost) their lives in the belief that they were bringing freedom to these people; (3) contradicted President Rajapaksa’s statement in his victory speech that there were no longer any minorities in Sri Lanka by creating a minority that did not enjoy rights like freedom of movement which are enjoyed by the majority; and (4) increased the chances of a new insurgency by converting Tamils who are well-disposed towards the government into people with a grudge against the government. I ended by observing that when the internment of 280,000 civilians is seen in the context of assaults on and murder of journalists, and policy proposals for the expansion of the army by 100,000 and cancellation of the presidential elections, it looks as if we could be heading towards a dictatorship. 

Why are the Vanni Civilians Still Being Held Hostage?

Throughout the last stages of the civil war, the government of Sri Lanka claimed to be engaged in a hostage rescue mission on behalf of civilians in the Vanni who were being held against their will by the LTTE. How far are its words borne out by its actions?

It is certainly true that the LTTE was keeping hundreds of thousands of civilians hostage and using them as forced labour, a source of child and adult conscripts, and a human shield from behind which they could engage in offensive operations against Sri Lanka’s armed forces. It has also been confirmed that in general the soldiers showed compassion to the escaping civilians, and some of them even risked their own lives to enable civilians to escape to safety. Although it was clear that for the political and military leadership, the aim of finishing off the LTTE involved sacrificing the lives and limbs of civilians, there did not seem to be any deliberate targeting of civilians during the war. Even the claim by some government spokespersons that shelling was necessary in order to free the hostages has some plausibility, given that the LTTE used the cessation of hostilities over the Sinhala and Tamil New Year to tighten its hold over the trapped civilians, not to release them.

However post-war, the picture gets more murky. Around 280,000 of the civilians who have suffered so much already have been kept prisoners behind barbed wire in camps where conditions are in many cases abysmal. It is clear that the government is unable to provide for them adequately, yet those with relations outside who would willingly look after them are being denied the right to join their families. If others want to check up on their homes in the Vanni or start rebuilding them, no one has the right to stop them. This denial of the fundamental right to freedom of movement is especially cruel for families which have been split up, which are thereby denied the possibility of reuniting, or even finding out what has happened to their loved ones. It is lethal for those who are physically vulnerable; senior citizens were released after a court found that many had died of starvation and more were dying daily, but the sick and injured, pregnant women and mothers with babies are also vulnerable. With the monsoon, it is likely that gastrointestinal diseases will kill thousands. Why, then, are these unfortunate people being penalised like this?

Self-determination, Sovereignty and Democracy: The Reality Behind the Rhetoric in Sri Lanka

Introduction

Journalistic accounts of the crisis in Sri Lanka refer to it as an ‘ethnic conflict’ between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority, and there is an element of truth in this perception: the war that broke out in 1983 and has continued ever since, despite periods of ceasefire, is primarily between the armed forces of a state dominated by a Sinhala nationalist agenda and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighting for a separate Tamil state. Yet this description is inadequate to capture the complexity of the situation in Sri Lanka. It simply cannot account for episodes like the following:

Norms of civilisation and humanity today seem assailed from all quarters, leaving one sickened, bewildered and despairing as never before. The actors in this grim scenario include the forces of the state, violent forces opposed to the state, shadowy vigilante groups…The gruesome tally of deaths mounts daily.

 

Those killed during the past three months include Kandy District MP Anura Daniel, shot in his office by men in military type unforms; General Secretary of the LSSP Trade Union Federation, P.D. Wimalasena, shot by gunmen who stormed his headquarters and set fire to its press; lawyer Charita Lankapura shot in his residence;..Chairman and Director-General of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and Competent Authority of the Independent Television Network, Thevis Guruge, shot on his morning walk; television and radio announcer Premkeerthi de Alwis, abducted from his home and killed; the Ven. Kotikawatte Saddhaissa Nayake Thera killed in his temple at Kolonnawa; Chief News Editor of Rupavahini, Kulasiri Ameratunga, shot in his home by unidentified gunmen; the Ven. Soragune Pannatissa Thera, taken out of his temple in Haputale and shot; young lawyer Kanchana Abhayapala shot at his home by an unidentified gunman; seventy-five-year-old Wellatota Pannadassi Nayake Thera shot when returning to his home in Kamburupitiya, and burnt; SLFP organiser in Kurunegala, H.P.Wijesekera, shot in Dompe; Rubber Research Board Chairman and former Deputy Minister Merril Kariyawasam shot in his office at Ratmalana; seventy-five-year-old Kahawe Wimalasiri Thera shot by an unidentified gang in his temple at Kala Oya, Anuradhapura; Moratuwa University Vice-Chancellor  Prof. C. Patuwathavithana and Chief Security Officer P.A.K.Ranaweera, slain on the campus premises at Katubedde; State Pharmaceuticals Corporation Chairman Dr. Gladys Jayawardene, shot in her car at Slave Island on her way home from office.

 

These are some of the names that made the newspaper headlines in recent times. The fact and manner of these deaths is at least known. In addition there are the eyewitness accounts of unidentified corpses, of headless bodies floating down waterways, of numerous bodies – sometimes singly, sometimes in heaps, often hideously mutilated – burning on the roadsides. (Civil Rights Movement 1989)

This is an account of what was happening in the rest of Sri Lanka when the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) occupied the North and East after the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987. While the total death toll has never been established, it amounted to tens of thousands – some estimates say 60,000, including disappearances – so the carnage was on a scale comparable to the loss of life in the war between the government and the LTTE. But this was not an ethnic conflict; it was a conflict between the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front) and the government, with both sides killing others who did not belong to either side, like the 32 schoolchildren of Embilipitiya killed by the state. It was a case of Sinhalese, including Buddhist monks, being killed by Sinhalese. Both sides used shadowy death squads: several squads in the case of the state, with names like the ‘Black Cats,’ ‘Yellow Cats,’ ‘Eagles of the Central Hills’ and ‘Scorpions,’ while the JVP used the Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya (DJV or Patriotic People’s Movement).[i]

In the case of Tamils, the killing spree started earlier, continued into 2008, and included the internationally recognised war crime of conscripting children and sending them to the battle front:

The LTTE took on the TELO at the end of that month [April 1986]…The manner in which the TELO members were killed shocked Tamil people everywhere. Many died without knowing what hit them. Twelve were killed near Manipay while they were asleep. Several were caught unawares, shot and burnt at junctions at Thirunelvely, Mallakam and Tellipallai. Eight persons were killed at the camp behind St John’s principal’s bungalow…The people were so terrified that few had the courage to give shelter to the fugitives…Some went home saying things such as: “We have produced our own Hitlers”. (Hoole et al. 1990, pp.81-82)

 

In the early 1990s, very young children from poor families taken by the LTTE in Jaffna were corralled in camps…In July 1991, most of the thousand or so killed in the LTTE’s desperate bid to overrun Elephant Pass were women and children…A woman in the Vanni regularly met young members of the LTTE fighting cadre who told her about their gruelling life…They told her, “Once you come into this organisation, there is no alternative. You must make up your mind to die. When volunteers are called for a dangerous job, we all raise our hands”. (Hoole 2001: 404, 415, 416)

These aspects of the LTTE’s politics have aptly been described as ‘the political culture of auto-genocide,’ (Hoole 2001: 403), and this epithet could apply equally to the politics of the state and JVP in the late 1980s. A characterisation of the crisis in Sri Lanka must account for these phenomena as well as the fighting between the state and the LTTE.