Sri Lanka; deciphering facts from propaganda

In the eyes of the developed and the Western world the South Asian region is a region of people associated with customs and traditions that are not very development oriented. There have been illiteracy, poverty, gender discrimination and even military dictatorships in the region and these have popularly been identified as the common impediments thwarting the progress in the region.

In the case of Sri Lanka, however, the West would opt to add one more incrimination to the above list and that would be the much flaunted allegation of discrimination on Tamils and the 'war crimes' now which have received wide coverage in the West. However, if the West cares to make a more objective study of the facts regarding Sri Lanka and the region that would bring to light that the Sri Lankan case is more a result of adverse propaganda and the country is a paradox for what it is perceived to be.

Western style democracy

Sri Lanka is a democracy and its people have enjoyed the universal franchise for both sexes, since 1931, making it the oldest democracy in South Asia. It is mainly a two party democracy resembling the British system but with provision for new ideologies as against the American two party institutionalized system. Therefore, Sri Lanka has been a Western style democracy with independent judiciary and an independent media to sustain and nurture it. What is remarkable however is that democracy has stood the test of time in Sri Lanka surviving through many a vicissitude when other countries in the region have been pushed to adopt other extreme forms of governments with exigencies of time. Sri Lanka's national literacy rate has been consistently hovering above 90 percent for sometime now and that has been the envy of other Asian countries. The main reason for this could be found in the free education policy introduced by the government in 1945 during the first elected Legislator on the eve of independence from Britain. Education in Sri Lanka is totally free, up to university level and even uniforms and textbooks are provided to the students. As a result, the incidents of child labour in Sri Lanka are either rare or non-existent and this too is a positive feature compared with the countries in the region.

Gender discrimination

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific issues a report every year on global gender discrimination. In this report Sri Lanka consistently ranks among the top 25 countries of the world in gender equality. This ranking takes into account the education of women, violence against women, career opportunities for them and their voice in the social decision making process. Further a report published in November 2008 by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on the gender gap in developing and developed countries for 2008, Sri Lanka is ranked 12th in the list of 'narrowest gender gap' ahead of UK, Switzerland and France.

Sri Lanka also has the lowest infection rate for HIV in Asia and that position would probably stand to the country's credit even in the global perspective. South-East Asia has the second highest percentage of HIV infected persons, 7.2 million, followed by Sub Saharan Africa. It is also a well known fact often highlighted in WHO reports that the current life expectancy rate in Sri Lanka is 76 years whereas in advanced countries it is 78 years. This is indeed laudable for a country with comparatively low per capita income like Sri Lanka and this is due to country's public sector health service provided at state cost since independence. International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank in its report 'Doing business 2007' has ranked Sri Lanka as the 102nd out of 181 countries for 'ease of doing business' and this position has since improved to date. The report identifies Sri Lanka as the leading reformer of business regulation in the South Asian region. The per capita income of an average Sri Lankan has reached US $ 2,045 as per the Sri Lanka Central Bank and World Bank records in 2008 and this is the highest for any nation in South Asia. The level of poverty too in Sri Lanka has been consistently coming down in recent years and it now stand at 7.2 percent from 22.7 percent in 2002.

Development strategy

Further the World Bank officials has constantly highlighted Sri Lanka's success story in already achieving three of the MDG's (Millennium Development Goals) and have singled out the country as the only one in South Asia that has the potential to achieve the MDGs of, child mortality, maternal mortality at child birth and longevity ahead of time.

These facts also signify that Sri Lanka as a nation has been investing quite heavily on its people; so much so that it appears that the development strategy of the Sri Lankan nation since independence has been centred on improvement of its human stock.

These facts also suggest that the Sri Lankans as a people, are benign considerate and most of all humane. The question then is how could a nation that has invested so heavily on its people give rise to sectarianism where one section of the Sri Lankan community accuses the rest of discrimination to a point where that 'aggrieved' section justifies the unleashing of brutal terror on the rest of the nation? Would the Western nations recognize the reality from hyperbole on Sri Lanka?

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