North-South Fisher Resistance and Working People’s Politics

What becomes of a people who are not just abandoned but willfully dispossessed by the state using the crisis as an opportunity? How do the people respond when political parties hardly see their suffering, and their trade unions are for the most part muted? These are questions we are confronted with as one of the most regressive budgets is about to be passed by an illegitimate Parliament.         
The implications of Budget 2024 are far reaching. The President – elected by this very Parliament that was de-legitimised by the mass protests last year – has proposed to railroad through sixty new laws and amendments. It is no surprise that he and his backers want to make these drastic changes to the juridical foundations of the state and economy before Parliamentary Elections. Furthermore, the IMF and the World Bank are not just supportive of many of these new laws to be passed by this illegitimate Parliament. In fact, they are demanding they be implemented with extreme prejudice. 

This farcical vision of juridical reforms goes far beyond the economic changes in the various phases of post-colonial constitutional reforms. It is comparable in breadth to the Colebrooke-Cameron reforms of two centuries ago, led by the liberal disciples of Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham that initiated the project for a colonial market economy. Contemporary advocates of such reforms may not succeed as a whole or even in part. However, their thinking reveals the neo-colonial arrogance of a comprador regime backed by global capitalist and geo-political interests. It demands a response of the democratic forces in the country. 

Theorising Politics

Some years ago, Devaka Gunawardena and I began re-reading our history, and felt a traditional conception of working class politics was inadequate to explain the ebb and flow of democratic struggles and the historical political shifts in Sri Lanka. Instead, we have been putting forward a theory of working people’s politics to explain the great political and electoral changes in our post-colonial history. The political economy of the country is shaped by the reality that most people draw their livelihoods from the informal sector and diverse income streams. It consists of an economic structure in which only a small section of workers are members of trade unions. Nevertheless, the masses have periodically come together to make valiant demands, which we have characterised as working people’s politics. 

What Gunawardena and I found in our research is that people from diverse backgrounds – including farmers, fisher-folk, factory and clerical workers, urban and rural petty-producers, and so on – encompass a broader category than what was historically considered the working class. They have come together at crucial historical moments demanding and often achieving major political and economic changes. Their demands do not emanate only from the challenges in their own livelihoods and sectors. For example, farmers may be affected by prices in agricultural markets and fisher-folk might be affected by price hikes of inputs such as kerosene oil. Rather, what brings these diverse actors together is their declining capacity to provision for their households and sustain their families with a decent social and economic life. Feminist political economists have referred to this nexus as the domain of social reproduction. 

Mounting Dispossession 

At the current moment, as the economy contracts and market reforms continue in Sri Lanka with the IMF program and the chokehold of the debt restructuring process, the working people are being dispossessed of even the most basic services. Recent data from the Ceylon Electricity Board reveal that already a half-a-million households - or about ten percent of the population - have been disconnected from the electricity grid this year. This is the consequence of the IMF program insisting on market pricing of energy. It has resulted, for example, in the quadrupling of electricity costs and the tripling of public transport costs. What a shame for a country that until a couple of years ago ensured electricity connectivity for practically the entirety of its citizenry. Many of those who are now managing their expenses to maintain connectivity to public utilities such as electricity and water are doing so by curtailing the consumption of food. 

Even according to the World Bank, half-a-million formal sector jobs were lost last year. The informal sector is even more drastically affected. More than half the population including children in households are now vulnerable. School drop-outs have risen and child malnutrition has become widespread. Sri Lanka is rapidly losing a generation with no relief and without a credible program of social and economic revival in sight. The IMF-World Bank nexus and Sri Lanka’s own policymakers are congratulating themselves by claiming that economic stability is being achieved. In fact, it is primarily about the readiness to repay Sri Lanka’s creditors. The mood in the street, however, is one of desperation. Nevertheless, neither the opposition political parties nor the trade unions have risen to the challenge of engaging and mobilising the people. 

Coastal Tremors

In these most worrying times of economic depression and authoritarian political intransigence, there is a bit of hope in the struggles of the fisher-folk. Over the last few months there is increasing opposition to the Draft Fisheries Act. It is one of those sixty so-called new laws and amendments that will drastically change the legal definition of a fisher. It proposes to heap further powers in the Fisheries Ministry and its Departments without considering the role of the fishing communities. It seeks to facilitate licences for foreign fishing vessels to exploit the Sri Lankan waters, and commercialise fisheries, thereby undermining the vast population of small-scale fishers. 

The Northern fishing communities - devastated for two decades by Indian trawlers poaching in the Sri Lankan waters of the Palk Bay and beyond - have sought to form a national network of fisher-folk to make demands about their future. They also held powerful protests in March, when the Foreign Minister suggested providing licenses for Indian fishers in Sri Lankan waters. However, such licensing policies are now being pushed through with the Draft Fisheries Act. These efforts over the last year included discussions in Jaffna and Negombo between Northern and Southern fisher-folk. They culminated in an encouraging mobilisation and public dialogue at the Veerasingam Co-operative Hall in Jaffna last week on December 1st, with close to two hundred fisher people and their leaders from around the country. 
The demands agreed to at the meeting that are to be taken to the fishing communities around the country included the following: 
1. Reject the Draft Fisheries Act.
2. Ban fishing licenses to foreign commercial vessels in Sri Lankan waters.
3. Reduce and halt the import of seafood as it continues to undermine the livelihood of local fishers. 
4. Ensure policies and allocations to rebuild livelihoods devastated by the crisis, particularly as state policies and insufficient budgetary allocations continue to undermine fisher-folk. 
5. Solidarity with Northern fishing communities to find a solution to the Palk Strait fishing conflict.   
Would such tremors of resistance from different sections of society that form the mass of the working people, coalesce into the major mobilisations necessary to set Sri Lanka’s politics and economy on a progressive path? The social movements, trade unions, co-operatives and the political parties worth their salt in terms of progressive values must get their act together.