Ceylon Today 30 December 2022
If one were to write the customary ‘Year That Was’ as circa 2022 draws to a close, it should be titled, as it is: “The Year That Should Not Have Been”. Yes, this is one year that the nation would not forget, the nation would like to forget that it never happened.
Yes, 2022 commenced as any other for most Sri Lankans but those ‘in the know’ knew it was not to be a normal year, as any other, filled with utopian fun and frolic, and the usual quota of political gimmicks and trade/student union protests. Instead, they knew the year would be one of unmitigated economic crisis but even they did not bargain for what it turned out to be.
Traditional economists knew that the nation was already faring badly on their front. But they too were not prepared for two events, one close to home and another, outside the nation. That is after the nation had fairly coped with two phases of the Covid pandemic and had sort of come out of the shock – social, political and economic – upturns of the Easter Sunday blasts arrived in 2022, with its baggage of more shocks and few surprises.
Looking back, would 2022 fare any better had it not been for the Easter blasts and the Covid lockdowns? The answer should still be a yes-and-no, not wholly ‘yes’ or completely ‘no’.
Welcome exit
It is accepted that much of the forex crisis that triggered the instant economic crisis, leading to social and political crises, one after the other, or one overlapping the other, owing to the pre-2022 years, but better definable than dating it all back to Independence and beyond. But the economic crisis that triggered the Aragalaya protests and the subsequent political crisis, culminating in the ‘welcome exit’ of the popularly-elected President in Gotabaya Rajapaksa, that too after he had fled the country, seeking physical safety, had trigger points in the very year all of it unfolded.
First, it was the Ukraine War that made forex dear and oil almost unavailable for the nation, because it had no money to settle pending dues and pay for current cash-and-carry purchases. Then, came three monumental follies of the Rajapaksa regime. One was printing currency like mad, and the second floating the rupee against the US dollar – making it as worthless as the Spanish peseta of the twenties (Today, Spain deals in euro).
The third and the worst cut of all was Gota’s unilateral decision to replace imported chemical fertilisers with organic manure from China (behind the back of officialdom on the ground and the farmers and tea estate industry). If earlier, the dollar crunch and the effective devaluation of the rupee had not begun affecting the rural people at the time; organic farming did.
This should explain the whole-hearted, nationwide participation in the Aragalaya protests, which were originally political in nature, tactically organised and strategically expanded, to upset the Rajapaksa apple cart. The credit for making it more popular and participative than possibly plotted should rest entirely on the shoulders of President Gota.
Gota’s once power-wielding brothers in Prime Minister Mahinda and Finance Minister Basil were either unwilling or unable to apply course correction that did them in. It did the nation even more. It would take the nation a lot more years to rectify the damage, if at all. Who would then care about what happens to the Rajapaksas, in political and electoral terms?
How fast, how early
The fact that the Indian neighbour remains the single-most donor during these weeks and months of distress, is saying a lot, in every which way. Months down the line, when the nation has begun breathing easy, prices have stabilised, and petroleum product intake has halved from those weeks of hoarding and black-marketing, the question arises if the nation can turn around, and if so, how fast and how early.
Conversely, the question is if the nation is doomed, how long would it be before it does a U-turn for the better? The Opposition is doomsday predictors, who continue to yell that the relative prosperity of the present, if it is any, will be short-lived. Their claims, however mischievous, should not be condemned or overlooked.
The sub-text of it all is if incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, who can at best be dubbed ‘accidental President’, will be able to revive and re-vitalise the economy, whether in this half-term or if in a second, full-term if given. The latter would depend on his delivery at least over the short-term, not just promises, as with all predecessors.
If it goes beyond Ranil’s term, one or the mandatory upper limit of two, then the current generation would have been lost to the nation. That generation would have also lost themselves. Already, studies have shown that more than two-thirds of the population has been pushed below the poverty line, and over a fifth of young children are malnourished.
Real-life stories of parents sacrificing their meals to feed the children, or better still, to send them to school, abound. But that is only the tip of the iceberg if one considers the sharp increase in the instances of drug abuse among school children and also the grown-up generation. In turn, it is going to impact social morals and societal morale, over the short, medium and long terms.
Waiting for manna…
A stage could soon come when reviving the economy and re-stabilising the political system would have been achieved relatively easier than restoring personal values, health and education – where Sri Lanka has excelled since Independence.
What needs to be done? Even as the government and the polity are grappling with macro issues, both economic and political, including the ethnic problem, the society, cutting across ethnicities, class and other social divides should take the initiative at the grassroots level, to feed and help families and villages and townsfolk fend for themselves. Say, religious and social institutions could organise daily meals programmes, preferably also at local schools. The government can help coordinate and collaborate with such exercises.
Professionals, especially doctors and other medical personnel, who are fleeing this country to one or the other of ‘green havens’ across the world, should consider what their nation had given them to be able to jump from what they see as a sinking ship. In its place, they should consider staying back and giving back to the society that had given them a good education, over the aspirations of other children with similar ambitions.
Yes, even then, the nation would have to wait for manna to fall from heaven. But then, even God helps only those who help themselves – isn’t it?
(The writer is a policy analyst & political commentator, based in Chennai, India. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)
