by Rajan Philips

Political Coming of Age

Both the observance of Independence Day and its erstwhile detractors would seem to have come of age at last, after 77 years. Tongue in cheek commentators have been harping too much on the irony of a JVP-led government celebrating independence. But the JVP was not the first political organization to question the authenticity of the island’s independence in 1948. That honour goes to the LSSP, rather the BLPI, the LSSP’s more doctrinaire variant at that time and led by a formidable triumvirate of theoreticians – Colvin R de Silva, Leslie Goonewardene and Doric de Souza. They memorably called the 1948 independence “fake independence.” It became a part of the political rhetoric of the Left and the JVP gave it a new life among the younger generations of Sri Lankans.

But over time the ‘fake independence’ characterization faded away and after 1970 when the LSSP was part of the United Front government, Leslie Goonewardene formally acknowledged that the old characterization had not been wholly correct. Sri Lanka, he conceded, was able to exercise complete independence in spite of imperial checks in the areas of defense and external affairs, and constitutional limitations. Sri Lanka was able to do whatever its parliament and government wanted to do – the good, the bad and the ugly – all in equal measures. Finally, in 1972, Sri Lanka was able to discard its dominion status, adopt a whole new autochthonous constitution, and declare itself a republic.

Challenging Times

Now after 77 years of independence and 53 years as a republic, Sri Lanka has come a full circle with a JVP President presiding over independence day celebrations last February 4. The political coming of age, so to speak, after 77 years has come at a challenging time for the country. This year’s ceremonies have been described as modest with more cultural and less militaristic emphases. The once controversial Tamil version of the National Anthem was sung to mark the end of the ceremonies. A week earlier the President had visited Jaffna and by all accounts he endeared himself to the people and was well received by them.

In his Independence Day address, President AKD spoke about the many cleavages that are tearing Sri Lanka: “Not only … the ethnic, religious, and caste divisions, … (but also) the entrenched prejudices that exist between political representatives and the populace, between institutional leaders and their staff, between passengers and public transportation operators, between government employees and the citizens they serve, between educators and students, and so forth.”

Critics will cavil that the JVP itself in its earlier incarnations had contributed to aggravating some of these cleavages. But give the man plenty of credit, we have not had a recent president who could provide such an organic assessment of our sociopolitical problems and sincerely commit himself to addressing them. But the tasks on the President and his government are tall and unrelenting. The still new JVP President and the NPP government have been in office for a little over 77 days – following the November parliamentary election. Yet there are those who seem to insist that the new government should be held responsible for solving all the accumulated problems of 77 years in just 77 days.

For the sake of argument, the NPP itself may have contributed to this notion by its own insistent campaigning that nothing has been done right ever since independence, and that only a new NPP government that will put everything right for Sri Lanka. This premise was incorrect however attractive it may have been for polemical posturing. All that said, there is no question that there are pundits who are holding the current fledgling government to a far more stringent standard of accountability than they have held governments that have come and gone in recent past. With only 77 days on, a balanced accounting of the new government should look at not only what it has done or started doing, but also what it has not been able to do as well as what it has steadfastly refused to do. Let us take the last point first.

This government has distinguished itself from its many predecessors from choosing not to do a number of things. For starters, and this is a unique start for Sri Lankan politics (save for the 1956 SWRD government), there is no family in government. There is no nepotism in government appointments. There is no interference in police matters or in government procurement. There is nothing corrupt about this government, and the main criticism appears to be that the government is not moving fast enough, or it is being selective, or even revengeful, in taking action against past corruption and corrupters.

The Rajapaksa Princely State

Corruption comes in many forms. It is corrupt not only to take bribes but also to insist on entitlements that are inappropriate even if they are interpretively legal. Former presidents are entitled to their pensions and reasonable benefits. Should every one of them be given a rent-free mansion at prime locations in Colombo, with a long retinue of security and staffers, is a legitimate question to ask even if there is self-servingly passed legislation to support such post-presidential prodigality.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi famously terminated the payment of privy purses to the ruling families of India’s erstwhile princely states and passed a constitutional amendment in 1971 to implement it. The courts approved it with the exception of some individual cases involving those who had held ruling powers before independence in 1947. It would seem that in the reckoning of at least one former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the whole island has once been his princely state. Hence, his claim to palatial entitlements in retirement.

President Dissanayake and the government should handle this matter not politically; but let government officials send a formal letter to the former president explaining why it is inappropriate for him to insist on this palatial entitlement but leave the matter of either vacating the property or claiming squatter rights entirely to Mr. Rajapaksa’s discretion. Leave it to him and his family to do the explaining to the people why he thinks he is entitled to this facility whereas every other retiring person has to make ends meet within the pension or EPF. And there is no assurance that people will get their pension or EPF after what he, his brothers and their economic whiz kids had done to the economy.

If at the time of independence, Sri Lanka had the Uncle Nephew Party (UNP), 77 years later there is a Sri Lanka Privy-Purse Party (SLPP). The positive difference is that the UNP was in power in 1948, but in 2025 the SLPP is out of power and the UNP is on life support. If the SLPP thinks it can claw back to power by making a public fight over the retirement mansion of its former president, so be it. And if the SJB thinks its fortunes will swell if it throws its support behind the Rajapaksa mansion-grab, so be it too!

The 1977 Legacies

In looking at what this government has done, has been doing, and has not done or not been able to do what needs to be done, we can invoke the year 1977 as a frame of reference. 1977 is a significant watershed year that marked the displacement of parliamentary democracy with executive presidency, created the so called open economy, and expanded irrigation and agriculture that led to self-sufficiency in rice production but subject to the vagaries of weather.

Year 1977 also saw the start of the riotous deterioration of ethno-communal relations and their rapid descent into open warfare. In foreign policy, the long (1977-1994) UNP government began with a sharp turn to the west, rebuffing India and abandoning non-alignment, but ended with the controversial Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement and the 13th Amendment that came appended to it.

The 1977 watermarks are significant in themselves, but they are doubly significant now because the NPP government has set itself up to be measured by what it may or may not do with the principal legacies of 1977. For instance, the government is committed to restoring parliamentary democracy and reforming the executive presidency. These changes are now expected to be implemented within three years, but there is no indication of how the political relationship between communities will be addressed in a new constitution even though the government should be commended for its sociopolitical approach in envisaging a ‘post-racial’ Sri Lanka. For now, let us give the government kudos for its intentions and time for their implementation.

The government will ultimately succeed or fail by how and what it does about the economy. So far, it has been steady in its start and going by the old wisdom the government must be getting it right inasmuch as it is being criticized by those who fancy themselves to be to the Left of the government and others who know that they are to its Right.

The President has set a target of achieving USD 36 billion from export earnings by 2030. While there is no way out of settling our foreign debt without export expansion, the government should be mindful that the USD 36 billion target needs to be supported by a detailed and feasible plan based on an identified export product mix and importing countries. Otherwise, it will turn out to be another tall talk like what Ranil Wickremesinghe did – promising one million jobs but doing nothing to create even one thousand identifiable jobs.

Within the economy, the rice situation has already become the pinch point. If it is not rice, it is coconuts, and even if they are imported they cannot be distributed immediately, because someone is not making customs official happy enough to do the work that they are paid for. The government seems duly concerned about these problems, but it is still trying to find a way out of the cycles of surpluses and shortages, let alone resolving them.

Notably, the government and especially President AKD are now realizing the huge data gap in the supply and distribution of rice, that some of us have been harping on recently. That is a good start, but there is not too much time for the government to assemble data and make decisions. The PMB, as some of us have argued could and should be used as a regulatory and data mining agency guiding the market rather than as a direct market actor competing with private rice millers. The PMB cannot be a regulator and competitor at the same time.

In foreign policy, the government would do well to use to its advantage the chaos that the new Trump administration is unleashing on the world, by staying below the radar and dealing with reliable partner countries to steer Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange economy to stability and reasonable success. The President has proved himself to be ambidextrous between India and China, and the challenge for the government is to leverage the competing geopolitical interests of the two Asian giants to advance Sri Lanka’s economic interests without being submerged by them.

One obvious challenge facing President AKD is about making clear that the NPP is a lot more than its executive president. People are yet to see the full cabinet in full flow. President AKD is easily one of the better, if not the best, executive presidents the country has had as measured by the attributes of comportment, collegiality, and being consultative. But even he needs to possess and project a team of equals who are similarly capable. One can only wish that the restoration of cabinet government will be achieved and matched by other positive advancements as the government completes one year in office before the 78th independence anniversary.