Sunday Times 2
Rotting with improvement in the Covid lockup
Locked up in the administrative capital of Sri Jayewardhenepura for the 61st consecutive day, watching birds and squirrels romping in the garden as cyclonic clouds sailed over, we were reminded of a stale joke at a school concert over five decades ago.
An old lady on stage was weeping profusely over the loss of her ‘Darlo’ and crying out aloud: ‘What could I do without him’. On being asked for the cause of death, she wailed: ‘I don’t know child, he consulted his doctor every day and each day he was told he was ‘improving’. But then, how did he die? Maybe, ‘He died of improvement, child’, she wailed.
We saw ourselves in the same plight as the unfortunate lady. Daily assurances that the Covid pandemic was well under control in Sri Lanka from the beginning, we’ve had from Covid pandemic warriors and medical authorities, on TV.
But after 61 days of continuous curfews, we in the Colombo and Gampaha Districts are still told that the situation is ‘improving’ and are in a lockup or lockdown. Call it what you may, but still we cannot move out.
Sri Lanka’s control of the spread of the Covid-19 virus and the death rate has been about the ‘best in the world’ we have been assured right from the beginning of the crisis by the highest authoritative sources. While in many other countries the rates of infection and mortality rates have been over and above that of this country — over a hundred folds or more. But now in the worst affected countries, they have relaxed the rigorous rules of the curfew within limits — even in the United States where the number of recorded deaths is about to top the 100,000 mark compared with our 9 deaths!
But we, in the Colombo and Gampaha districts are still under a 24x 7 curfew apart from a few hours break irregularly for a week or two.
The infections transferred from person to person in these areas have been at a bare minimum, save for the infections spread out by some Navy personnel — Veerodhara Rana Viru, ‘Heroic War Heroes’, in the words of the big chief of the Covid Operation, the Army Commander Lt. Gen. Shavindra Silva.
In this Land of Heroes, every combatant who was in the War on Terrorism is a War Hero (Rana Viru) and perhaps even those who joined the forces after the end of the war too. There is a cover of heroic immortality for whatever misdemeanours that may have occurred even after the war. The infected sailors may be innocent victims of a blunder made not by them. And this 11th Anniversary of War Heroes is a time for solemn commemoration and not for nitpicking.
Three hearty cheers for all heroes and heroines, including the unsung heroines and heroes at the pandemic front: nurses, doctors, medical personnel including attendants, morgue and crematorium workers who are facing the deadly virus — at times ill equipped — risking their lives and also those at home endangering their loved ones.
Last week in this column, we wrote of another band of unsung heroes — the millions under the lockdown or in domestic lockups. Keeping them indoors has been the main cause for the miraculous results claimed by the leading Covid warriors on TV. But those rotting at home are asking: For how long dear Guardians, how long? Certainly, the Covid virus can be kept to a bare minimum with rigid curfews, indefinitely but till when?
Some world authorities on viruses have said that the world must learn to live with the Covid virus till a vaccine is discovered and even after that. In Sri Lanka malaria, filaria, gonorrhea, syphilis, tuberculosis (TB) and many other communicable diseases have existed for years and people have lived alongside.
In and around Colombo 3, 4, 7, 5, and along the Presidential Drive along Horton Place to Kotte, Talawattugoda and beyond no cases have been reported in the media save in one pocket in and around Rajagiriya. So why impose this rigorous punishment on hapless people, depriving them of a fundamental right, the freedom of movement and association? The medical authorities may be wanting to play it absolutely safe to protect people from the virus but separation of people including isolated family members could be disastrous. TV anchors read out statistics — like cricket scores during Arjuna Ranatunga’s days — showing Sri Lanka in much better light than even world powers but as is often said: statistics don’t bleed.
Robbing Peter to Pay Paul
While the Covid 19 overlords are taking a grim view of the crisis, not so, some others like in the Sri Lanka Cricket Board which appears to forget the rigours of the day and has come out with a proposal to build a new cricket stadium with a capacity to accommodate 60,000 fans at Homagama.
Cricket for Lankans is a serious matter and we got to think ahead, appears to be the thinking of the board.
Great minds at times think alike, they say, and some other thinkers of the Rajapaksa government strategy are proposing extensions of highways involving foreign loans of millions of dollars and huge commissions too cynics add. The President’s Secretary, P.B. Jayasundera however is thinking on a different line. He is finding it hard to manage the government’s finances and says that government expenditure could be reduced by at least Rs 50 billion, if public servants donate at least half their salaries to the Widows and Orphans Fund. The government’s monthly expenditure amounts to about Rs.100 billion, he has said.
The Jayasundera economics and political strategy which would have received the imprimatur of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is hard to comprehend. They decided on an advanced payment of Rs 20 billion for 2 million under poverty line (Samurdhi beneficiaries) and thereafter an interest free loan scheme of Rs 10,000 to be given in instalments was announced.
Who got what from these disbursements is strongly contested by opposition parties.
This exercise of giving out money under poverty alleviation schemes and asking public servants to contribute their salaries or even a fraction of it smacks of what Englishmen called robbing Peter to Pay Paul.
Our research into this exercise of Robbing Peter and Paying Paul led us to the times in England before the Reformation of the Paul Tax and the Peter Tax where Englishmen had to pay taxes to St. Peters in Rome and St. Paul in London. Tracing the evolution of robbing Peter to Pay Paul is too much of a task for this columnist but a comment by the Irishman George Bernard Shaw is worth recording: A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. This may have been the PBJ strategy with a general election to be held sooner or later.
Government Servants, we all are well aware, are not known to donate their salaries or even a part of it. They go on strike for salary hikes instead. Salary hikes are theirs by right. Ask the Yahapalanaya chaps who gave them a 10 percent hike. Those below poverty line naturally await handouts and this one was desperately needed.
With elections round the corner the wisdom of Bernard Shaw is worth consideration.
Meanwhile, though most real cricketers — those who have actually excelled with bat and ball — have condemned as ludicrous the idea of having another cricket stadium with so many international stadia sprouting weeds. But the ICC appears to be hemming and hawing.
I say old chap, time to speak out, what? We heard a veteran down Maitland Crescent saying.
(Gamini Weerakoon is a former editor of The Sunday Island, The Island and Consulting Editor of the Sunday Leader.)