Sri Lanka's Democratic Revolution: The Latest Episode in a Decades-Long Drama

On July 14, 2022, Sri Lanka’s parliamentary speaker announced that he had accepted the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, sent by email from Singapore where he had fled via The Maldives.[1] That this former military commander – known as ‘the terminator’ due to his propensity to get critics assassinated[2] – was forced to resign by an overwhelmingly non-violent mass movement marks this as a major episode in Sri Lanka’s protracted democratic revolution.[3]

Christianity and Capitalism in India and Sri Lanka

Introduction

Christianity came to India and Sri Lanka from other countries at various periods ranging from ancient times to the present. Therefore a general view of the link between Christianity and capitalism (or anti-capitalism) is necessary in order to understand how the specific relationship between Christianity and capitalism (or anti-capitalism) developed in these two countries. The first section of this paper will present a general view of Christian attitudes to poverty, wealth and capitalism in early Christianity, during the Reformation, and in the modern period; the second and third sections will look at the shapes and forms these attitudes took in India and Sri Lanka respectively; and the conclusion will sum up the findings of the paper.  

Nightmare's End?

I am not in Sri Lanka, and I feel torn about what is happening there. Acute anxiety about how millions of people will survive the dearth of food, fuel and medicines nestles alongside a glimmer of hope that this crisis could be the beginning of the end of a decades-long nightmare. Since the country gained its Independence in 1948, various sections of the population have been targeted by its ruling bloc: threatened with losing their homes, livelihoods and often their lives. They have fought back, but each section has been isolated and crushed by an increasingly centralized and ruthless state. Now, for the first time, the vast majority of the population has risen in revolt. Criticism of the dictatorship is widespread, and divisions between working people may finally be healed.

The Gujarat Model of Development: What Would It Do To The Indian Economy?

 

The cornerstone of Narendra Modi’s and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections is that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has ruined the Indian economy and the BJP led by Modi will make it boom. These claims have been reinforced by corporate adulation for Modi in his ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ summits (Times News Network: 2013) and surveys showing that almost 75% of top corporate CEOs want him to be the PM (NDTV Profit: 2013). How valid are these claims?

India’s economic performance since the 1990s

The economic reforms initiated by the Congress government in the 1990s raised the Gross Domestic Product growth rate from an average of around 3.5% per annum since independence to more than 9% between 2005-06 and 2007-08 (Planning Commission: 2011), before dropping to 6.7% in 2008–2009 as a result of the global financial crisis (Government of India: 2010). Global competition forced manufacturers of products like electrical and electronic goods to improve the quality and reduce the price of their products. Computers, internet access and mobile phones became much more widely available. 

However, neoliberal policies that were part of the changes had serious negative consequences. Privatisation was in many cases accompanied by massive corruption (e.g. the Commonwealth Games and 2G scams), as politicians and bureaucrats received kickbacks from the corporations they favoured. In other cases, even if there were no kickbacks, lack of adequate regulation allowed corporations to make windfall profits, while public sector banks offered them generous loans without exercising due diligence. The campaign by industrialists for the abolition of protective labour laws reached a crescendo during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime. It stopped when the UPA came to power, but the anti-labour atmosphere had already influenced state labour departments and even the judiciary to such a degree that workers struggling for their rights were seldom successful. 

Marxism and the Economic Crisis

Most explanations of the US-led global economic crisis in 2008 argue that it began with a financial meltdown triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis and bursting of the housing bubble from 2006 onwards. This paper, using Marx’s Capital and other Marxist writings, argues the opposite: that financial turmoil was just one symptom of the profound crisis into which the US economy had been sinking for years, transmitted to the rest of the world primarily through the use of the US dollar as world currency, and secondarily through the globalization of the world economy. 

Review of Globalization, Employment and Income Distribution in Developing Countries

Globalization, Employment and Income Distribution in Developing Countries edited by Eddy Lee and Marco Vivarelli. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2006, xvii + 253 pp., ISBN 0 230 00783 X, £65.00

This book presents the findings of the second stage of a research project funded by the UK Department for International Development and carried out by the International Policy Group of the International Labour Office. The focus of the project was on the impact of trade and investment liberalization on employment, within-country inequality and poverty reduction in developing countries. While the first stage of the project carried out a general worldwide review, this book is based on country studies of Morocco, Ghana, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Nepal.

Trade Unions and Women's Autonomy: Organisational Strategies of Women Workers in India

 

Introduction

 

The labour force in India is as diverse as Indian society itself, divided by gender, religion, caste, region, ethnicity, language and history. In this context, the issue of equality assumes extra importance, yet trade unions have failed to tackle it with the seriousness it deserves. This failure has had an adverse effect on all sections that suffer from discrimination, above all on women, and also on the movement as a whole.

 

This chapter looks at some examples of the ways in which women workers have organised successfully, and tries to assess how far these attempts go towards addressing the issues of discrimination and equality. It adopts a case study approach, looking at six cases from a diversity of locations: The All-India Chemical and Pharmaceutical Employees’ Federation and its activities in Bombay, Maharashtra, in Western India; the Women’s Wing of the All-India Bank Employees’ Association which has branches throughout the country; The Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh and Mahila Mukti Morcha from Madhya Pradesh, Central India; the Navayuga Beedi Karmika Sangam in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, Southern India; Sarba Shanti Ayog and Sasha based in Calcutta, West Bengal, in Eastern India; and SEWA, based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in Western India. The absence of North India is not accidental; this is the region where women face the most brutal violence and oppressive patriarchal control, and organising autonomously is most difficult. I have also included material from a project sponsored by Women Working Worldwide to find out if Codes of Conduct can help women workers in the garment industry, although this cannot count as a case study since the overwhelming majority of the women remain unorganised.

 

The chapter aims to show that while some progress has certainly been made, women and other disadvantaged sections remain marginalised in the labour force, and trade unions still fail to recognise the importance of tackling this issue. Finally, it argues that globalisation perhaps opens up possibilities of using new resources which might aid in the struggle for equality.

Journey Without a Destination: Is there a solution for Sri Lankan refugees? (Foreword, Preface, Chronology of Major Events and Chapter 1)

 

Foreword

 

Rohini Hensman’s Journey without a Destination is the story of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war, told in the words of those displaced or dispossessed by the fighting.

    Over half a million Sri Lankan Tamil refugees have fled to other countries while over a million Sri Lankans are displaced internally by the continuing conflict.

    Her in-depth interviews bear witness to the complexities and the contradictions of a society at war with itself – the conflicting emotions of those who have fled the country, the hopes and fears of those who are internal refugees.

    She charts in the process an incisive oral history of Tamil and Sinhalese nationalism – two cultures on a collision course – and a human cost that can never be adequately measured.

    She has found that those who suffer sometimes have insights that could hasten a solution – insights inevitably based on tolerance and understanding.

    These are qualities that we also urgently need in European countries if we are to face up to our own responsibilities – to help and support those who seek refuge from such savage conflicts.

 

Alf Dubs, Director

British Refugee Council

[1993]