Sri Lanka crisis: A warning to India too!
As the ‘People’s Revolution’ erupts in Colombo demanding the resignation of the Rajapaksa family, President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is pretending to be a cabinet reshuffle. The Government of Sri Lanka is carrying a ‘begging bowl’ to the International Monetary Fund as it urgently needs $ 3 million over the next 6 months to provide basic necessities to the people. On April 12, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka warned that the economy was in the worst crisis since 1948. There is no way out of the crisis and there are reports that Sri Lanka’s economic aloes are on the alert. A country is ‘bankrupt’. What does this crisis signify?
The main lesson of the Sri Lankan crisis is that governments that focus solely on inciting religious and ethnic hatred by abandoning the country’s livelihood, economic and development structures will sink into this abyss.
The Times of India (Apr. 17, 2022) has written a detailed article pointing out that there are now long queues of Sinhalese, Tamils and Islamists in Colombo for basic necessities such as cooking gas, kerosene, milk powder, diesel and petrol. ‘The Rajapaksa family must resign’ has become the only slogan past the races. In the same Colombo, when the Sinhalese went on a rampage against the Tamils in Colombo in 1958 and 1983, it was the Sri Lankan Army Commander Ratnayake who saved the Sinhalese, the minority Sinhalese in the Northern Province of the Tamils has said. Sinhalese have put up posters condemning the genocide against Tamils. Tamil journalist Nilanthan says the Tamil area is quieter than the Sinhalese area. Tamils are religious believers. Instead the Sinhalese were incited as religious fanatics (though not all).
The BJP and the Sangh pariwars have deliberately incited sectarianism to divert the government’s economic policy failures from the people’s problems in the Indian Union as well. Ramanavami and Hanuman Jayanti processions have erupted into riots in many states. The capital Delhi is engulfed in tension. The world-famous US ‘New York Times’ reports that 40 lakh people have died due to the negligence of the Indian government during the Corona epidemic and that the government has hidden the truth from the public. The World Health Organization concludes that the method of calculating mortality in India is incorrect. The Union government condemns the World Health Organization for publishing the facts. But the BJP has been making untrue propaganda as the country’s economy is improving.
The time is approaching when the Union government will realize that the strength of the nation lies not in the identities of religions or in sectarianism, but in the right to life of the people. Sonia, M.K. Stalin including 13 party leaders issued in a joint statement on the toxic ideologies of the Union government and have pointed out the danger; We would also like to point out that Sri Lanka is facing crises and chaos due to the sectarian policies of countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Periyar Muzhakam 21042022 Magazine
