By Amitava Mukherjee There are quite a few reasons why Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the President of Sri Lanka, appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister of the country. First, Ranil Wickremesinghe is known to be close to the Rajapaksa family and it is more than likely that he will try to save both Gotabaya and Mahinda […]
By Amitava Mukherjee
There are quite a few reasons why Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the President of Sri Lanka, appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister of the country. First, Ranil Wickremesinghe is known to be close to the Rajapaksa family and it is more than likely that he will try to save both Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa from public wrath. If that is to be done, then the first requirement is to ease the economic pressure that the people of Sri Lanka are now burdened with.
Let us see what is Wickremesinghe’s record in this regard. His name carries conviction with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). On a previous occasion, he had duly carried out IMF prescriptions for recovery of the country’s monetary health. He had raised the level of taxation, particularly on the rich corporations but at the same time provided a safety net for the common people. This had led to a healthy state coffer and had earned respectability for his country in the eyes of international financial institutions. Some other measures of fiscal discipline like tightening of money supply and attempts to raise the GDP level were also put to practice by him.
Pro-India
In international politics, Wickremesinghe is known to be a pro-India person. Did New Delhi have any hand behind his selection? It will be prudent not to speculate. But there were wild and unfounded rumours on the streets of Colombo as to India’s role at this juncture. Some said Mahinda Rajapaksa had taken shelter in India. Admirably, the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka denied it. Later it was found that Mahinda has, in fact, taken shelter in a naval facility of the Sri Lankan armed forces. Then again there were irresponsible speculations that India will send its army to Sri Lanka. This was also stoutly denied by New Delhi.
Ranil Wickremesinghe’s name carries conviction with the IMF — he had duly carried out IMF prescriptions for recovery of the country’s monetary health on a previous occasion
But behind all these unfounded rumours, there may be a deeper import – people of Sri Lanka are now perhaps yearning for Indian shadows over their country’s internal and foreign policies. The expectation may have become stronger with Wickremesinghe’s selection as the country’s Prime Minister. He comes from an elite family of Sri Lanka. His maternal grandfather was a media baron who published several newspapers and was a champion of Sri Lanka’s freedom movement. Wickremesinghe’s paternal grandfather was one of the earliest top ranking official of the colonial government. Wickremesinghe’s father had succeeded his father-in-law in the latter’s media business and had become one of the mentors of the United National Party (UNP) to which he now belongs.
Lineage Strong
Inside the UNP, Wickremesinghe is no doubt a leading light which is to some extent due to the reflected glory of his family connections. JR Jayewardene, a former President of Sri Lanka who is credited with the revival of the UNP in Sri Lankan politics, is Wickremesinghe’s maternal cousin. At different points in time, Wickremesinghe has served different governments of his country but, to say the truth, he has not been able to leave any fundamental mark on his country’s governmental policies as has been done by Sirimavo Bandaranaike or her daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga.
The sudden turn of events has come as a godsend opportunity for India because beneath the public outrage against skyrocketing inflation and a crumbling economy lies an unmistakable strain of anti-China feelings. The crisis was exacerbated by a sharply falling foreign exchange reserves which was, in turn, caused by a rapidly rising debt servicing burden.
According to one estimate, about one-third of Sri Lanka’s all external debts can be linked to China and Colombo’s debt burden amounts to more than 45% of its GDP. So much so that Colombo has been forced to lease out the Hambantota port to Beijing as the island nation is unable to pay off the debt.
When he was previously Prime Minister from 2015 to 2019, Wickremesinghe was accused of protecting the powerful Rajapaksa family from allegations of corruption and other wrongdoings
Both the Rajapaksa brothers lack foresight. Mahinda is principally responsible for ensnaring the country in external debts. The situation has become so perilous that Colombo was unable to pay for the import of chemical fertilizers. Biofertilizer is good but it requires a considerable time for a change over from chemical to this type of manures. As a result, agricultural production nosedived leading to severe inflation of edible items. Sri Lanka’s national income fell short compared to national expenditure. So foreign exchange reserve plummeted and the country was unable to import medicines and other necessities even in the Covid-19 situation.
Possible Options
Wickremesinghe has predicted a harsher time for Sri Lanka in the next two or three months. Unlike the Rajapaksa brothers, he is a suave politician and is trying to prepare his countrymen for the stark future. But his hands are tied. He may get help from the IMF and the Asian Development Bank. That may not be enough and he is thinking about raising money from other international markets in spite of the fact that his country has no credit rating. It is interesting to note that China, which is a major cause of Sri Lanka’s pathetic plight, is now sitting on the fence.
So what are the other options before Wickremesinghe? Will he join the QUAD, a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States? If he does, he is sure to get access to American and Japanese coffers too. But that will draw Sri Lanka further into the vortex of the Indian Ocean region geopolitics. Colombo has once paid a heavy price for bowing its head to Beijing by giving the latter geostrategic bases and becoming one pearl in the Chinese strings in the Indian Ocean region. Perhaps Wickremesinghe would not tread this path.
For a long time, Sri Lanka has followed a policy of self-destruction. Now it is the hour of unified response by all countrymen to face the challenge. Wickremesinghe has been harping on it publicly. But will he get enthusiastic support from the Tamils of Eastern and Northern provinces? At this time, it will not serve any purpose to say that Wickremesinghe had previously been in power several times and that he was unable to complete terms on each occasion, let alone guide Sri Lanka along the right path.
Wickremesinghe typically represents the mindset of the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community — wary of internecine war but firm on maintaining iron hands of the majority community
But the most relevant point is his attitude towards the question of Tamil autonomy. Before the 2015 election, Wickremesinghe and his UNP had categorically promised changes in the system of an all-powerful executive president, in the mode of devolution of power and the electoral system. But soon he changed colour and spoke in favour of unitary governments and said that enough devolution of power had already taken place.
In a sense, Wickremesinghe typically represents the mindset of the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community — wary of internecine war but firm on maintaining the iron hands of the majority community. He can carry the whole nation with him only if he changes his outlook.
Myopic Leadership
To all intents and purposes, Sri Lankan political leadership has been proved to be myopic. Never in the history of the country has its political leadership, and that includes Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika Kumaratunga also, felt the necessity of establishing heavy and primary industries. The economy relied mostly on the export of tea, rubber and coconut. Two other sources of revenue were tourism and remittances by workers mostly from the Gulf countries. This composition shows that no economy can survive on it. Recent statistics show that revenues are declining, particularly from the export of agricultural cash crops and tourism.
The outbreak of Covid-19 has contributed to the fall of the tourism industry. That power supply in the country has come to a grinding halt should cause no surprise because in Sri Lanka power is generated mostly from oil and the Russo-Ukraine war has caused great uncertainty in oil supply. If the Prime Minister is sagacious then he should make a switch from oil to coal for power generation. Coal-generated power is cheaper too.
Ranil Wickremesinghe has hoped for a closer relationship with India. It is logical because India has stood by Sri Lanka in its hour of crisis. New Delhi has extended $3 billion to Colombo in form of loans, credit lines and credit swaps. But for New Delhi, the most important thing to watch is whether Wickremesinghe’s reinstatement at the centre of Sri Lankan politics leads to a reappraisal of the island nation’s geostrategic policy.
(The author is a senior journalist and commentator. He can be contacted at amitavamukherjee253@gmail.com)
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