How disaster reigns when greed replaces ambition

Sri Lankans have always shown the urge to share food and unite at a time of crisis like this picture shows. Here a volunteer serves food to protesters at GotaGoGama. (Pic AFP)    

A private bus plying from Athurugiriya to Kollupitiya recently was packed mostly with office workers. A good number of passengers were standing and it went without saying that they were feeling the ‘heat’ inside the bus. In the bus there were two stickers notifying passengers that two seats have been reserved for people who fall into five categories; the clergy, pregnant women, mothers carrying babies, people with disabilities and senior citizens. What a generous thought!  

If only people think of others like this in an island readying itself to brace an impending food crisis what cannot be achieved? This is a country where there is a culture where a potion of food cooked in a house is sent to the neighbour because there is a culture of sharing food. Sri Lankans never eat alone. We see television commercials where an opened packet of biscuits is sent around in a bus if the journey is long. During the Sinhala –Tamil New Year there is neighbourhood help for each home to get their residences cleaned and ready before the New Year dawns. There is so much to learn from Sri Lankan customs about humanity.  

However, despite such rich traditions that are preserved many among the community believe in beating another person or someone in your neighbourhood in most endeavours in life. The third or fourth generations –after independence- educated themselves, went abroad and came back with a new face; the face of ambition. Ambition is good, but it being devoid of a touch of humanity has created all this mess. What really tore this country into shreds is the uneducated political culture; the lawmakers who thought it’s quite okay to plunder state wealth and be unqualified in the subject matter you are dealing with. Other ambitious countries soon got scent of this island nation that would be in trouble because of its lavish spending culture. India and China closed in on this island in the guise of friends who’ll help during a crisis. Now these two nations are dictating terms to us because we have borrowed extensive loans from them.  

In no time Sri Lanka had become a nation that eats and drinks on credit. The worst thing was that the lawmakers of this nation never portrayed to the people the true picture of the economy about to crash. Till we crashed the much celebrated Rajapaksa family was building infrastructure that was not going to generate any worthwhile income.  
Now the lawmakers of the country are speaking of growing our own food with the goal of raising the average national product. This call is coming very late. According to Central Bank reports our GDP is to read -3.5 soon.

According to IMF statistics that figure should read -6.5. What a pity when history reveals that this was a country that once exported rice. But there is caution that must be thrown in about growing our own food. This will help the government to hide its inability to make its system produce the needed food stocks to be available in the market. That big mouthed Sinhala tuition master who has a much watched ‘YouTube’ channel once said that the opposition can never topple this present government because most people in the village can survive by eating off the produce from their gardens.   

We were demanding the entire 225 politicians in parliament must go. That’s a fine call; largely because they didn’t do justice to the perks and salaries they were enjoying. Now some say that we still have a final chance with Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe in the saddle. He tried many times before while holding the same post of prime minister. He carries enough experience and has the education to propose an economic solution. Already he has proposed a comprehensive reform package which speaks of a three-phased path for the country to emerge from this economic abyss. He has also proposed a slew of policies to overcome an impending food crisis. But Wickremesinghe often stretches too much the negative side to the Sri Lankan downfall when speaking in parliament or dealing with the media. Psychologists have time and again underscored the need to generate positive thoughts in the people during these troubled times. This is because it’s the people who have to find the strength at this crucial time and work in a manner which will raise their output like never before. Also the cost of goods is also rising steadily. This leaves little room for us to adjust our budgets in quick succession when the prices of goods are raised so frequently.  

In this backdrop we need to think of how to fund schemes that cater to the less affluent. Economic experts have been underscoring a vital fact time and again that there is no such thing as a free meal. Someone has to bear the cost of such meals. The hand that feeds the poor-which is the government –has been taxed for over half a century in doing this. Just the other day we learned that the Wickremesinghe government has allocated large amounts from the Government’s supplementary estimate of Rs 695 billion in funding programmes like the monthly Rs 5000 allowance, paying pensions and funding Samurdhi recipients. The total budget for these programmes is Rs 122 billion! So aren’t we still feeding or funding the poor despite knowing the fact that the government is now at breaking point economically?  

We are a Buddhist country and practise the giving of alms and free meals. But to promote such noble practices we need to sustain ourselves. Most often a potion of the first crop from paddy cultivation goes to the nearby temple. This is why the farmers must be given fertilizer and concessions to be in business. In this aspect the Agriculture Ministry plans to cultivate 800,000 hectares of paddy in the 2022-23 Maha season must be lauded. It must be mentioned here that the government has decided to import chemical fertilizer for the upcoming Yala and Maha seasons. Now the focus from the GotaGoGama has shifted to the plight of farmers, growing home gardens and the impending food crisis. There is much talk on social media platforms about growing some of own food in our own backyard. This way we could return to the era of the early islander whose garden or field spoke volumes about what he ate and how healthy he was. We still have our lands and must never look down upon agriculture and planting as professions from which the next generation must move away.  

Suddenly the home is much talked about as the place to work from and grow your own food. But home must be safe for our children. These days we hear of daughters being raped at home or being molested and children being killed. Economic development and financial freedom are yardsticks to judge our growth, but whether this success means much is debatable when our children are vulnerable to great dangers at our own homes.   

Coming back to the bus that had reserved seats for people who must get priority it was a little disheartening to note the manner in which the vehicle was driven. Soon the driver of the bus forgot about people waiting at bus stops to board the vehicle because he responded to a challenge thrown at him by another bus driver plying his vehicle on the same route. All hell broke loose from there onwards. People in the bus started clutching their seats and praying for their safety.  

Let’s hope that the citizens of Sri Lanka see the country at the hands of this ‘caretaker government’ being taken to a ‘safe station’.