Ceylon Today Editorial

Electricity and Poverty

03 March 2017

State controlled 'Daily News' quoting Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe on its Tuesday's edition said that by modernizing poultry and the dairy subsectors in the agriculture sector, it would be able to generate greater employment and industries within the village itself.

He had said this at the opening of the Rural Economic Affairs Ministry in Colombo.

The Premier had further said that economic development, both rural and urban, has become a dire necessity for the government.

"We need to look at alternative incomes, jobs and try to reduce imports," Wickremesinghe had said. "Despite such a need however....Sri Lanka's situation remained unchanged over time. We have not progressed despite the end of the war and the main reason for this is the lack of national unity. We are working on it now," he had further said.

The Premier had also said that over the last few decades what had happened vis a vis the rural economy had been the unemployed moving to an urban centre or to the Middle Eastern, Italian or Singaporean economies: Thus affecting the village economy. "How do we create development within the rural economy?" he had asked.

In the first flush of Sinhala nationalism, beginning in 1956, the seemingly 'ideal' village was identified by having in place, 'the tank and dagoba.'

The tank for the nourishment of the mainly agro-based rural economy with rice taking pride of place and the 'dagoba' for the uplift of the villager's 'spirituality,' in the backdrop that 70% of the population is Sinhala Buddhists.

But, despite seemingly targeting to achieve these twin aims by politicos in the events leading up to and post 1956, Sri Lanka suffered a bloody but abortive insurgency in 1971 led by Sinhala extremists in the form of the Marxists JVP which led to the deaths of 13,000 Sinhala youth.

Unemployment in the country was in the double digit region, then.

Six years later, the government elected to power in 1977, at least tried to keep the 'tank' aspect of this 'pledge', by launching the accelerated Mahaweli Development project, telescoping a programme which was previously earmarked to take 30 years, to seven years. This was possible, mainly after obtaining grant aid from the West. That brought irrigated water to the North Central Province (NCP), a part of the island's dry zone, a key agro area of the country, where a sizeable number of its population at least then was farmers, thereby making a giant stride in making Sri Lanka self-sufficient in rice, which politics dominated the country's landscape for a quarter of a century since the bloody Hartal of 1953.

Large numbers of indigent and the landless from other areas of the South were also resettled in the NCP under this programme, being provided with lands for both paddy cultivation and for housing, thereby apparently tackling the twin problems of the country not being self-sufficient in rice and unemployment. The accelerated Mahaweli Development programme perhaps fulfilled the 'tank' pledge in the 'tank and dagoba' political contract covering the Sinhala villager.

Nonetheless, like all man made and man thought out projects, the weather aspect was probably overlooked. As, current events prove, no rains mean no rice harvest, once more leading to a situation where Sri Lanka is not self sufficient in rice.

And, the other drawback, the cause of Sri Lanka's 26 year old terrorist war, a pawn in the hands of the Jaffna Tamil political machinery was a result of its machinations in the preceding years leading to this tragedy, thereby making it seemingly intractable for Colombo to reach out to this, the island's largest minority population, then.

But, 40 years on, after much blood has been shed, the Jaffna Tamil politico now realizes that the way forward is by joining hands with Colombo and not by being hostile towards it.

That was perhaps what led Wickremesinghe to say that the reason why Sri Lanka has not progressed was due to the lack of unity with the Jaffna Tamil. However, that may be only one aspect of the story. The Premier also cannot afford to ignore the hopes and fears of the majority in this equation. A historical example of this was the 'unholy' events that culminated in the unfortunate July '83 riots, followed by the second JVP insurrection of July 1987, coinciding with the infamous Indo-Lanka Peace Accord.

Rural poverty which predominates Sri Lanka's socio-economic landscape, has led to three bloody revolts, two in the South and one in the North, thus far since Independence. It may have to be tackled by giving 'Industry', whether it be agro-industry based or not, and 'Services' a boost and not necessarily 'Agriculture' only.

A start may be made by making electricity cheap and reachable to the rural poor, thereby making refrigeration no more a luxury, but a necessity. Then only the Premier's vision of making the island self-sufficient in dairy and poultry exports being a realizable possibility, to tackle rural poverty.