Lanka Diary – 1: What people think of India’s aid to Colombo
Sri Lanka’s economic crisis is unprecedented any standard. Firstly, barring Afghanan, no country in south Asia has experienced such a severe meltdown at any point in the last 75 years. Second, Sri Lanka went through a major civil war from about 1982 to 2009, and while the country’s economy, once praised Lee Kuan Yew as a model for Singapore, stumbled, it was never so bad as to to cause food and fuel queues. And thirdly, Sri Lanka has been through two insurrections the left-national Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, but has never seen such public anger and hostility against those in office. Some have called it Sri Lanka’s Arab Spring.
India is Sri Lanka’s only neighbour, and it is inevitable that New Delhi’s role in this crisis should come up in conversation.
Yesterday, a man shouting slogans at one of the many protests in Colombo told me that India must not help the Rajapaksas, that it must be on the side of the people. And though he said Sri Lanka was thankful for Indian assance — India has provided $2.4 billion in assance since January this year — he could not explain why he thought Delhi might help the embattled ruling family of Sri Lanka, or in what way.
But there is an underlying concern, not openly stated, that assance from India — two lines of credits, one for fuel and another for food and essentials — which has brought petrol, diesel and rice to Sri Lanka to ease the shortages, may bring the temperature down on the street and thus end up helping President Gotabaya Rajapkasa stay on in office.
From a massive protest near Temple Trees, the official residence of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Protesters on the traffic island and masses on both sides of the road. @tallstories reports from Colombo for The Indian Express pic.twitter.com/L0QjU0SDz6
— The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) April 8, 2022
As political analyst Kusal Perera pointed out, assance from any country, or any agency, will have the effect of easing the life of the people and thus defuse the crisis for the Rajapaksas too, at least in the short to near term.
“That is inevitable. The priority right now is to end the people’s misery, to end the shortages of essential commodities, like food and medicines. This might help Gotabaya, at least temporarily. But he can’t hope to stay on forever. There are many reasons why the Rajapaksas should go, why the people hate them, and they will be voted out eventually,” Perera said, pointing out, however, that “right now, it is opportunic to accept help from India on the one hand, and say don’t help the Rajapaksas on the other”.
The Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Gopal Baglay, who briefed the Indian media in Colombo on Friday, was emphatic that the assance from India is “a humanitarian” gesture.
But Delhi has also being criticised in the local media for pushing through many long-pending strategic development projects such as Trincomalee oil tank farm, renewable energy projects and other such agreements in return for its timely assance. The concern is India is using the crisis to regain the “hold” that it exercised over Sri Lanka in the 1980s, during its intervention in the ethnic conflict. The term “viceroy”, once used to describe J N Dixit, the Indian high Commissioner in Colombo at that time, has started reappearing.
In Sri Lanka, cooking gas shortage and power cuts lasting hours have disrupted daily life. (Express Photo: Nirupama Subramanian)
Assance is a double-edged sword, for the giver and for the receiver, and Sri Lanka is very conscious of this in its time of crisis.
A protester holds a placard reading, ‘You messed with the wrong generation’, in Colombo. (Express Photo: Nirupama Subramanian)
