The Current Economic Crisis and the People's Movement in Sri Lanka: Prospects and Challenges

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]

Sri Lanka: A Democratic Revolution in the Making?

Rohini Hensman and Faizun Zackaria

 

A time for gratitude

 

Two disasters were recently averted in Sri Lanka. The first would have been the re-election of the corrupt and brutal Rajapaksa regime in the presidential election of 8 January 2015. Its defeat can be credited, first and foremost, to democracy activists across the spectrum – Sobitha Thera, trade unionists, students, teachers, women’s groups, political parties, social activists, artists, lawyers, civil society organisations,  the Movement for Social Justice, social media activists, and so on –  who organised the campaign for a common opposition candidate with such skill and courage that it succeeded despite the huge amount of money and muscle-power employed on the other side, and also to the Election Commissioner, who carried out a tolerably free and fair election against heavy odds. Secondly, to Tamil voters, who overwhelmingly rejected the Tamil nationalist plea to boycott the election (Weerawardhana 2015). The Tamil National Alliance in particular has played a commendable role in recent years, affirming their faith in democracy by opposing the continuous slide into dictatorship under the Rajapaksa regime. For Muslims to support the opposition should have been a no-brainer after the state-sponsored pogroms against them by Buddhist thugs of the Bodhu Bala Sena (BBS); that it took so long for their leaders to disentangle themselves from the old regime is a sad comment on the corrupt politics of patronage. Hill-country Tamils, most of whom had hitherto been in the clutches of plantation politicians like Thondaman of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress which supported the Rajapaksa regime, gave an overwhelming message that they can make intelligent decisions on their own.

 

However, there is no way the common opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena could have won without the votes of Sinhalese voters, who voted for change in defiance of the violence, massive expenditure and racist fear-mongering of the Rajapaksa brothers. An analysis of the election results shows that Rajapaksa lost ‘because a large chunk of Sinhala voters who supported him in 2010 voted for the Opposition in 2015’ (Gunasekara 2015). It is notable that even the Buddhist monk party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya, articulated the need for change and mobilised their constituents to realise it. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) played an impressive role both in the campaign and before it, opposing attacks on Muslims by the BBS and highlighting the need for a political-economic democratic programme. Unfortunately, leaders of the mainstream Left parties remained with the Rajapaksas right to the end, although many members joined the common opposition campaign.

 

The second disaster, perhaps even more ghastly than the first, would have been a coup by Rajapaksa in the wake of his defeat in the election. For many people in Sri Lanka, this was the greatest fear. It has been reported that he conceded defeat only after the Attorney General, Solicitor General, Army Chief and Inspector-General of Police refused to endorse an attempt by him, backed by Mohan Peiris whom he had installed as Chief Justice, to stay in power (Sri Lanka Brief 2015). This allegation has yet to be proved, but if it is true, Sri Lankans owe an enormous debt of gratitude to these public officials who saved the country from sliding yet again into bloodshed and chaos.

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.