Editorial

In what seems a quirk of fate, the Government’s ‘Sri Lanka Day’ planned for this weekend and intended to celebrate ‘national reconciliation’ did indeed turn out to be a time when the nation stood together—but for a different reason; the entire country is still counting the dead, searching for the missing, and mopping up the debris from Cyclone Ditwah.  Up next is a massive exercise in relocation of people, reconstruction of destroyed property and infrastructure, and revival of livelihoods and the national economy.

The proposal for a ‘Sri Lanka Day’ was first mooted in the Budget 2025 speech by the newly elected president. It was intended to be a national programme ‘with the objective of creating a harmonious Sri Lanka by developing understanding among communities’. Though no direct reference was made to Sri Lanka’s Independence Day on February 4, many were perplexed by what appeared to be a superfluous proposal and questioned how many ‘Sri Lanka days/national days’ needed to be commemorated.

The Government’s wish to rewrite history according to its own script is the genesis behind the ‘Sri Lanka Day’ (December 12-14), now postponed for early next year. It appears keen to create its own national narrative.  Over the past year, it has introduced several national programmes highlighting unity – ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ to ‘sustainably elevate…the entire Sri Lankan society to a higher level, then a ‘Nation United’ – a Ratama Ekata national mission to eradicate drugs, followed by a virtual ‘National Day’ to mark reconciliation and unity, and alas now, taking priority above all others, ‘Rebuild Sri Lanka’—a collective effort to recover from the devastation of the cyclone.

Like with the country’s fundamental law, the Constitution, every new government wants a new constitution and a new national day. The ’75-year curse’ that this Government keeps whinging about is a reflection of its perceived discrimination as a downtrodden people exploited by the feudal ruling elite that controlled the politics of this country since Independence in 1948.  All the progress made since 1948 has been thrown into the ‘dustbin of history’, to use a Trotskyite slogan of the Russian Revolution, ignoring the vast strides in free education—schools and universities, free hospital services, housing and development schemes, and above all, the maintenance of parliamentary democracy in the North and the South, despite violent, armed, local putsches.

Even the left-of-centre SLFP, heavily influenced at the time by the Trotskyite LSSP and the Communist Party in coalition, wanted its own ‘National Day’. They felt ‘true independence’ was obtained only in 1972 (not 1948) with the Republican Constitution that severed the umbilical cord for good from colonial rule, ending the recognition of the monarch in the United Kingdom as the country’s sovereign.

Neighbouring India also became a republic (1950) soon after independence (1947), under the same Congress Party, and today celebrates both Independence Day and Republic Day. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, celebrated Independence Day (February 4) and then also Republic Day (May 22), downplaying Independence Day, and went back to Independence Day after 1977, with Republic Day no longer even a public holiday.

That this country is literally under an ominous weather cloud still, post-Cyclone Ditwah, and metaphorically a dark cloud of uncertainty, is an understatement. The week passed with threats of more rain to inundate the already saturated earth; people being told to find new places to live; landowners uncertain of plans to acquire property; and a multitude of religious services transferring merit to those who perished in a flash—men, women, children and animals.

The Government is currently on the defensive, accused at the bar of public opinion of ignoring weather warnings, for not implementing required procedures already in place and for failing to take timely action for the people hit directly by the eye of the cyclone. Critics were quick to say it was a man-made crisis out of a natural disaster: failure at every level of the administration.

The initial euphoria over humanitarian aid distribution included politicians and young people taking to social media to promote songs, community kitchens and even fleeting social media fame for ‘aid delivery heroes’.

With that phase soon coming to an end, the Government now has to undertake the massive post-disaster recovery challenge, which requires not only mobilising financial resources but also organisational and administrative capacity and astute management of public expectation, especially following the lengthy and generous gift list read out by the President in Parliament. Political opponents are watching from the sidelines to highlight what they would call yet another ‘false promise’ by an inexperienced administration. The Government cannot afford to fail in its delivery of ‘Rebuild Sri Lanka’ which will be judged far more closely than its ‘national unity’ – Clean Sri Lanka’, ‘Ratama Ekata’ and the aborted ‘Sri Lanka Day’ for reconciliation.  Priority will have to be given to ‘Rebuild Sri Lanka’, for which the Government will need the support of the entire country, not just its supporters.

In his address to the nation post-Ditwah, the President declared a truce with public servants and with the military, whom the Government had previously antagonised but now finds indispensable for its disaster recovery efforts. For the same reasons, it is showing some deference to the Buddhist clergy and majority Buddhist sentiments, for which it was accused of having scant regard, judging by the public outcry over recent incidents.

There now needs to be at least a temporary truce with its political opponents if it truly believes in ‘national unity’ and recognises a consensus is needed to undertake the massive task of recovery and reconstruction free from divisive politicisation.

In the meantime, Cyclone Ditwah has also had a dangerous side effect in a geopolitical sense. The Air Force with just two operational helicopters exposed the vulnerability of the country’s military capabilities even for humanitarian uses. Plans to downsize the armed forces to placate the diaspora need a serious rethink.

This calamity has opened our air space for the big military powers active in an already tense Indo-Pacific region to descend upon the ravaged country with ‘humanitarian assistance’. In cash, a meagre total of 2 billion rupees is all what has flowed from abroad into the national kitty for relief. While it is difficult to ‘look a gift horse in the mouth’, in the form of assistance from the big powers in the region and elsewhere, the cliché that there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’ even in adversity, has to be borne in mind. And that ‘birds of prey’ are on the hunt circling over this strategically placed island-nation.