Rural sector signatory of election victory

Wijitha Nakkawita

The country just witnessed a Presidential election. The verdict of the people was clearly seen. President Mahinda Rajapaksa won by a clear majority of votes and it is now time to get back to work. Development programs started during the past four years have to be continued for the national economy to achieve a rate of rapid growth.

Acceleration of the ongoing infrastructure programs, extension and diversification of agriculture and value addition to both the traditional and commercial plantation crops and improvement of the service sector are some of the urgent tasks in addition to increasing exports and developing tourism.

Yet what was seen on the political platform of the Opposition and what happened behind the scene were not always before the public eye. Therefore we have to examine some of the salient facts that made it possible for the changes among the more prominent personalities to take place.

A long time back we had this book on how the spy services and international hit men, including economic hit men work.

But in this country we had our own economic hit men long before the West conceived the idea. When we regained independence in 1948 from the war battered UK Government of Clement Attlee our first leader D. S. Senanayake was a person who loved the country and sincerely strove to develop it as an agricultural economy. In fairness to DS one should not forget that his very little academic education was compensated by his knowledge of the local rural economy and agriculture.

Irrigation

DS had read Henry Parker and R. L. Brohier on the ancient irrigation works of the Sinhala people and was convinced that major irrigation reservoirs like Parakrama Samudra, Minneriya or Kala Wewa should be restored for extensive rice cultivation.

Unfortunately for DS and most other contemporary leaders of his times was this habit of following whatever the departed British Raj did before he left our shores. He developed the North Central Province and the Eastern Province with a rare dedication but once the resettlement of those ancient lands of the Sinhala Kingdoms with people from the south took place he called them colonization schemes. Of course the connotation of the term implies that some foreign or alien community is brought in to a new place to be settled. Later on one finds the separatist terrorists and others of the same ilk using the term to say that ‘Sinhala Governments’ colonized their ‘Homeland’.

Trends

The trends set by the early separatist Tamil leaders from C. Sunderalingam or S. J. V. Chelvanayakam saw a wedge stuck between the Sinhala and Tamil people, followed by the latter, smaller politicians like Amirthalingam who egged on the Tamil youth to take up arms.

D. S. Senanayake’s policy was to restore the pristine glory of the ancient kingdoms by restoration of the irrigation systems and bringing under the plough the paddy lands that were covered by the jungle after foreign invasions.

But the UNP leaders that followed except perhaps for Dudley Senanayake appear not to have understood the policy of their founder leader.

Now comes the turnaround in local political scene. In 1956 with the MEP Government that wished to revive the indigenous civilization. Two eminent leaders S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, Philip Gunawardena and P. H. William Silva chartered several policies to revive the lost prestige of the country. Unfortunately the right wing in the Government worked hard to oust Philip and Willam and the right wing finally plotted the assassination of SWRD ending his life.

Premier Sirimavo Bandaranaike both in 1960 and in 1970 once again worked to start local industries and revive agriculture but she too had to face more than one coup or plot like the one in 1962 by a group of anti-national comprador elements.

Overthrow

Again in 1971 the Janata Vimukti Peramuna attempted to overthrow her Government by an armed youth insurrection, but failed. In 1977 again a new UNP headed by the aging J.R. Jayewardene came to power. And he became the strong economic hit man as well as the patron of the merchants and importers. Paradoxically his handmaids and sycophants started calling him the father of the ‘Open economy’ whatever balderdash it meant!

What were the real results of his policy. In the first place all the importers of Colombo including foreigners who had been granted distinguished citizenship by the former UNP Governments – some of them had defrauded foreign exchange – became very rich almost overnight.

The small, medium and even cottage industries like handlooms folded up overnight. Farmers were in the doldrums as all food including rice was imported. The Jaffna farmer who was once a prosperous citizen during the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Government found he had no market for his produce.

Now the balderdash open economy only opened the doors for a microscopic minority of merchants and cronies of the Government.

Successive regimes from Premadasa to Kumaratunga simply allowed the economic rot to continue but did nothing to revive the main economic activity agriculture and reduce the huge food imports bill.

None of them addressed the issue of producing our own food nor did they move away from the existing economic framework and seek to develop indigenous industries.

Of course they too like Jayewardene had to cope with the terrorist threat and the danger to the public, mostly unarmed civilians, being killed in and after 1983.

When President Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected in 2005 he introduced his singular policy of developing the rural sector for once following the policy of D. S. Senanayake and Sirimavo Bandaranaike.

Production

His food production program saved the country from the escalating world food prices when most third world countries spent the largest percentage of their national income on food imports.

The fertilizer subsidy for farmers was one of the successful policies that contributed to the increase in food production. The second mandate of President comes in the backdrop of this radical policy change

that cronies of neo-liberal western powers would frown on. But it would succeed for the benefit of the indigenous population.

Like in the case of all nationalistic leaders the pro-western groups hankering after dominance over others would attempt to destabilize the economy or even engage in treasonous schemes. However as long as the people were with their leader such anti-national groups or persons cannot succeed.