16-05-2022 The Asian Independent

8 16-05-2022 to 31-05-2022 NEWS
www.theasianindependent.co.uk
Crisis in Srilanka is economic while leader
provided religious solutions for it
(Samaj Weekly)- Srilankan crisis
is the story of accumulation of
public wealth by powerful individuals
who do not offer economic solutions
to their people but give an
excuse which makes the minorities
the villain. This has become the
favorite understanding and analysis
of the politicians in South Asia.
They easily find a way out to
‘resolve’ the crisis of people. They
don’t offer jobs, economic growth,
social security but provide ‘religion’
as a tool to resolve their crisis.
This ‘religion’ as a tool is nothing
but a politics of hatred and prejudices
towards the minorities. Sri
Lanka’s powerful Sinhalas suffered
in hatred against Tamils and later
the Muslim minorities. Every day,
they used to bring out issues that
would actually humiliate the
Muslims and put them on defensive.
In the name of national security,
Srilanka’s politicians actually were
enjoying the power of selling false
supremacy ideas to their Sinhala
public. People too were mad in their
prejudices that they did not see that
their leaders have amassed huge
wealth and money. The politicians
were living lives which our kings
too never lived. Today, the same
crowd of ‘.devotees’ of the ruling
establishment is in the street looking
for politicians and burning their
properties.
How has Sri Lanka come to such
a sorry state? It was a country,
which I also felt, the best in South
Asia. It was a country which should
not have had that crisis. A beautiful
island country which recuperated
from the internal strife but not the
Sinhala nationalism made the leaders
so powerful that they refused to
address the economic issues of the
people. Today, the tiny island nation
is in total chaos and the prime minister
and his family has to flee to a
naval base while many other ministers
and members of parliaments
face public anger. Many houses
belonging to Ministers and
Members of Parliament were burnt
and many members faced life threat.
The president is asking for people to
be quiet but it is a fact that people
are not going to be satisfied
unless the president
too resigns and is tried
for treason.
What are the lessons
from Srilanka’s crisis
with India?
The first and foremost
is don’t abandon
your own market, your
own farmers and farm
production as per the
powerful World Bank
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
and IMF which are meant to
strengthen the western monopoly
and ask for private corporations to
decide your fate.
Russia has managed to counter
the so-called sanctions because it
has natural resources. You can not
download wheat from google. So,
the stock market does not really represent
the crisis of a country. Indians
must understand that the economic
crisis is looming large over our
heads too. Unfortunately, political
leadership here too aggravates that
and deliberately creates artificial
social and cultural crisis to evade
answering the economic issues. So,
for our politicians, the issue of a
temple or the priests are more
important than the issue of hunger
and malnutrition. Every day, we are
being fetched with the greatness of
this temple. Every day, we are being
told to change names of places.
every day. you are compelled to discuss
these issues selectively which
put the minorities particularly
Muslims on tenterhook.
Hatred has become their best
weapon while ignoring the hard
issues which might befell us in the
coming days. The economy is in the
worst shape and the only attempt is
to capture people’s resources. The
netas are becoming kings with
obscene wealth while people are
suffering. Interestingly, in all this,
the role of our media is that of a
conspirator, a partner in the crime
against fellow Indians in denying
them the correct information and
deviating from discussing the real
issues while giving them false religious
solutions for their economic
crisis. India media remains the
stooge of the powerful ‘jaatis’ and
business interests of the cronies but
despite that India still has the
resilience to fight against such
things. We still have local modes of
production and remain powerful.
Please continue to encourage and
patronise the farmers, the local vegetable
vendors, street vendors as
they will survive India. India’s
strength is its farmers and their local
production. Once the country
depends on external countries for
their basic needs then survival
would be difficult as government’s
borrowings for their own purposes
ultimately create chaos but all
nations and societies who have their
own means of productions and who
are not dependent on private cronies
and import from outside will survive.
Our citizens must learn that no
nation can become powerful by just
becoming a ‘service’ country for
others. We may have glossy international
products, big cars but it will
not survive unless the farmers are
allowed to flourish and people
patronise them. Wishing Srilanka to
come out of this crisis soon. Hope
this will give enough ideas and
thinking to their political class to not
consider their people as cannon fodder
and listen to them, strengthen
the local mode of product and keep
away from giving false religious
solutions for your socio economic
crisis and most importantly, politics
of hatred and exclusion can only
take you towards disaster.