Hello, everyone. Good morning, afternoon or evening, and welcome to this edition of Notes from South Asia. You can find all the articles in the series here (along with my other diaries).
Today we will cover more election issues and persecution of dissenters in India, post-election discussion in Pakistan, and the state of education in Sri Lanka.
India
Court Opens Their Eye for a Brief Moment
There is this character in the Ramayana, called the Kumbakarna, who sleeps throughout the year except for one day. On that one day, he will be invincible, that is his boon. The Supreme Court of India while not being invincible apparently does open their eye to justice once every year or so, and thus, delivered a sound judgement yesterday.
The Indian Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the Electoral Bonds Scheme saying that it violates article 19 (1) (a) of the Indian Constitution which protects right to information and freedom of speech and expression. This is a blow for democracy and transparency and all we can say is better late than never. Vineet Bhalla of Scroll explains why the SC struck the act down.
The electoral bonds scheme introduced by the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2017-’18 is unconstitutional because it disproportionately restricts the fundamental right of voters to information about the source of funds accepted by a political party – knowledge of which is essential if voters are to exercise their freedom to vote effectively. This is the crux of the Supreme Court’s judgment striking down the scheme on Thursday.
The Court said what we all know. That money in elections lead to influence and that might affect the decisions politicians take when in power. Thus, it is a threat to democracy to keep the donations anonymous (the donations themselves are a threat is another matter) and people have a right to know the details of funding that political parties get.
The scheme allowed individuals and corporations to buy financial instruments called electoral bonds from a designated bank. These could be used to make anonymous donations to political parties in denominations of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore. The parties were also exempt from reporting the source of the donations received via electoral bonds to the Election Commission.
Because of the legal opacity afforded by electoral bonds, parties could even get away with receiving donations from foreign sources .
From the time the scheme was introduced in 2017-’18 until 2022-’23, electoral bonds worth Rs 12,979 crore were sold. Of this, the BJP received Rs 6,566.12 crore. This was more money from electoral bonds than all other parties combined.
A lakh is 100,000. A crore is 10 million.
The scheme benefited the ruling party (BJP) the most. Opposition parties welcomed the SC judgement. I have no idea why the SC decided to uphold freedoms for once, but I welcome the move.
Anna Isaac of the Newsminute has a breakup of the money that political parties received via electoral bonds. Editor: Dhanya Rajendran.
The data for April 2003 to January 2004 is not out yet, so she gives only until March 2023.
The ruling BJP has garnered the highest amount between 2017 and March 2023, receiving a staggering Rs 6570 crore or 54% of the total electoral bonds sold. The Congress party received a total of Rs 1123 crore or 9% of the total electoral bonds sold. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress was close behind, having garnered Rs 1092 crore.
Among the regional parties, the TRS received Rs 912 crore between 2017-18 and 2022-23. Significantly, K Chandrasekar Rao’s BRS received over 50% of the donations via electoral bonds in the financial year 2022-2023, months before Telangana witnessed the Assembly elections. Incidentally, TRS, which was in power in the state for two consecutive terms, lost to the Congress in the December 2023 elections.
Naveen Patnaik’s BJD garnered Rs 774 crore, while the DMK received Rs 616 crore, YSRCP Rs 381 crore, TDP 146 crore, AAP 84 crore via electoral bonds.
The party-wise figures were compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which was one among four petitioners who challenged the scheme.
While many parties received money through the scheme, it benefited BJP the most.
Oh, it reminds me that the Hindu reported that 90% of corporate donations also went to BJP (Hindu Bureau).
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received nearly 90% of all corporate donations worth ₹680.49 crore that five national parties together gathered in 2022-23, according to a report by election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
Return of the Farmer Protests
As the general election nears—though the dates are not yet announced—different farmer movements are protesting the Modi government’s refusal to give a minimum support price for produce. They have a few other demands as well such as a pension of 5000 INR for each farmer.
Most of them are from Punjab and Haryana. So it may not be farmers from all over India as far as I know. The Haryana police erected barriers on the road so that the farmers cannot reach Delhi. In Delhi, Delhi police did the same outside the capital. Farmers have been struck with tear gas shells from drones and even pellet guns (as per twitter). Vivek Gupta reports for The Wire.
Rajpura (near Shambhu Barrier, Punjab): Seventy-one-year-old Jaspal Singh lives near the India-Pakistan border in the Tarn Taran district of Punjab. “I have never seen brutality of the kind I have encountered at the Shambhu Barrier,” he says.
Jaspal has sustained a lacerated wound on his right leg and is undergoing treatment at the emergency ward of the government hospital in Rajpura town of Patiala district, where The Wire spoke to him.
Shambhu Barrier, where farmers have gathered as part of their ‘Delhi Chalo’ protest, only to be thwarted by security forces in Haryana, is not far from Rajpura. Farmers with multiple injuries have been admitted at the government hospital here ever since tension began at the Shambhu barrier on Tuesday, February 13.
Jaspal told The Wire that he was part of the protesting crowd standing nearly half a kilometre from heavily police guarded barrier. Suddenly, tear gas shell dropped by a drone hit him.
“I lost consciousness for few minutes. Then I was brought here for treatment,” he said. He added that he was part of the farmers’ protests in 2020 too. Even then, he said, police brutality was never so extreme.
“Is peaceful protest a crime now? Don’t we have the right to protest for our legitimate rights?” he asked.
Gurdaspur resident Ranjit Singh, 24, who has been admitted today morning, told The Wire that the government is acting in a manner that can only be called extreme.
Showing multiple abrasions on his body, he said he was hit by over 50 gun pellets.
He further said, “We are being treated as if we are from Pakistan and as if the Shambhu Barrier is the India-Pak border.”
The barbed wires used to prevent peaceful protesters from moving towards Delhi are so sharp that a single touch would be enough to injure a person, Ranjit said.
He also claimed that the government was even using expired tear gas shells to inflict maximum injuries on them.
The protestors started flying kites to bring down drones that dispel teargas shells and the police seems to have stopped using the drones after that. (Does get A for innovation.)
MSP is a promise made by the government to farmers before they plant a crop.By asking for a statutory backing farmers only want to ensure that MSP announcements are not hollow promises. It's that simple.When prices fall below MSP, the government will step in and buy a small share of the harvest, to lift prices to the promised 'minimum' level. It does not have to buy the entire produce. And it won't cost a fortune. For eg, an analysis by CRISIL research shows that if the government wants to implement it in the 2023-24 marketing year it will cost just Rs 21,000 crore.In fact, MSP can be an excellent tool to make farmers move away from rice and wheat to pulses and oilseeds where India is deficient.It's a bogey that a legal backing to MSP will bankrupt the exchequer-- similar fears were expressed when the food security act was enacted by the UPA govt in 2013.
While this is against the norms advised by WTO and the West, the minimum support guarantee is required to make agriculture affordable for farmers. Letting big agri consolidate farming is not in my opinion a good thing for the environment or food security. That is what BJP government reforms (pushed for by WTO and others) seek to do.
Suppressing Dissent
The Caravan, an Indian monthly, had to take down a video and online report on the torture of villagers in Poonch in Jammu & Kashmir after an order from the Indian Government. The link contains the following message.
This URL has been taken down because of an order from the ministry of information and broadcasting under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The Caravan is in the process of challenging the order.
Subscribe now to The Caravan, or Contribute. Your support helps keep The Caravan independent and our journalism fearless.
The video contains some graphic and horrifying material since it shows some of the survivors’ injuries. The print magazine that is out on the stands has the article. (I printed the article, so I have it too). This specific excerpt shows the every day oppression in their lives. The reporter is Jatinder Kaur Tur.
Safeer had also walked the thin line that was required for a Muslim family to have some sense of security along the border. The village of around sixty ramshackle houses had an army post nearby, in which were stationed the 48 Rashtriya Rifles. Army men—many of whom Safeer was on a first-name basis with—used to often roam in the village, asking locals for cigarettes, groceries or other essentials they lacked at camp. Safeer, well-trained in the treks to and from Topa Peer, was asked to work as a porter and informer for the army unit, an offer he had refused, much to the chagrin of military men. They occupied a part of his house, for which they paid no rent. Noor, who was with the BSF’s intelligence unit along the Rajasthan border at the time, recalled that in August 2023, a horse the army had tied there caused significant damage to the rented room. “When Safeer complained about the damages, he was summoned to the army post,” Noor told me. “But, that day, I called the police station house officer, the army’s junior commissioned officer and the special operations group commander.” Safeer was released, though the security personnel kept his phone for a few days.
Noor admitted his brother had a close relationship with the government’s intelligence apparatus. “He was already a registered source for the Intelligence Bureau,” Noor said. The IB is India’s domestic intelligence agency and has a network of informers in Jammu and Kashmir, a net that is particularly thick around Poonch and Rajouri, regions through which Pakistan-trained militants enter. An IB official told me that their informers’ credentials and past tips were meticulously scrutinised before they were added to the Register of Informers—an official roster of the IB’s informers. Safeer was not merely on a casual contract, where informers would be paid in cash for individual assignments, but received a monthly salary, indicating that he was a registered informant. “Their handling officer is responsible for the protection of their identity or if they get into any trouble,” the IB officer said.
The army picked up Safeer and the family thought it was just another day. They didn’t think anything would be different this time. But it was.
Noor was on leave, staying in a small house in Hasploot, a village located downhill from Topa Peer and close to the town of Thanamandi. He found out only later that militants had attacked an army convoy in Dera Ki Gali, twelve kilometres up the road from Thanamandi. Four army personnel had been killed, and the militants had uploaded a video showing off the guns they had seized from the army convoy. The 48 RR was undertaking a search operation in the surrounding villages, picking up dozens of men. Alarm bells began ringing in Noor’s head.
The next morning, Safeer’s body returned to Topa Peer. Zainab fainted on seeing him, specifically the deep gash across his forehead from the post-mortem that the army had hurriedly conducted. She fainted repeatedly over the next few days. “They returned his body, mutilated with multiple fractures and a broken neck,” she told me. Noor was shaking when he described the body. “His arms, hand and feet had electrocution burn marks, and much of his body had protrusions from where he was beaten with rods and lathis.” When I reached their home, Amar, who was still young enough to mistake the words for father and uncle, was running around in circles shouting “Army ne chacha kaat ta”—the army cut uncle up.
The J&K police have registered a case against army officials. But the army and the government usually resist police investigations—they did in Assam where a bunch of civilians were killed a couple of years back—and the court usually backs them. So, I don’t know if anything will come of the investigations. The Indian government gave ten lakhs (1 million) INR to each of the people’s families as compensation. The video that was taken down had sacks of cash (which really surprised me; the government is not usually so prompt with giving compensation; and why in cash like an under the table payment?).
It was all done very fast, and I think they realised just how bad this was. Not that army has not tortured civilians before this but they usually do that more in other areas not in Poonch. The current incident involved Gujjar and Bakkerwal tribes, Muslim nomadic tribes, that are on good terms with Indian government though they are at present protesting a government decision to give tribal status to a few other groups in Kashmir. They are marginalised communities in Jammu & Kashmir that the traditional elite Muslims of Kashmir (and elite Hindus of Jammu) had typically neglected. Thus, they supported the union government’s move to abrogate article 370 that gave semi-autonomous status to Jammu & Kashmir.
While custodial violence like this has a long history in Jammu and Kashmir, the 22 December incident stands apart for several reasons. First, the fact that one of the soldiers decided to take a video of the torture and share it suggests that the armed forces have been emboldened to believe that they will not face accountability, regardless of the amount of evidence that exists to illustrate their crimes. Second, the fact that it was widely reported that the army paid blood money to the families of those tortured and killed is unprecedented, and points to an abdication of the responsibilities of governance to the army and the military’s role in attempting to derail the criminal-justice system. Third, both the army and various ministers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party were quick to respond to the situation, announcing a slew of welfare measures for the affected villages. This is uncharacteristic of previous brutal operations. This is likely as much a factor of the BJP’s own electoral interests in the region—given that all those affected were from the numerically important Gujjar and Bakkerwal communities—as it is the army’s attempt to pacify a now restive frontier. This suggests a worrying union between politics and the armed forces, one that does not augur well for religious minorities anywhere in the country, least of all in grieving villages such as Topa Peer.
The Hindu had reported on the torture and the compensation on the days after the incident came to light. I assume that the Caravan was asked to pull down the story because of the video—which contains the leaked torture scenes—and because of the feature length coverage of the story.
On the same note—suppressing dissent not army torture—article-14 reports how the Indian government has been cancelling overseas citizen cards (that allows Indians who are citizens of other countries to visit India without a visa) for the diaspora who spoke up against India. Vijayta Lalwani reports: How The Modi Govt Is Trying To Silence Critics In The Diaspora By Banning Them From India.
Summary: The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cancelled more than 100 Overseas Citizen of India cards over nine years, according to right-to-information responses we received from the home ministry, and blacklisted—meaning banned from entering the country—an unknown number of Indian-origin people. Indian embassies and consulates are increasingly tasked with monitoring and stopping those who criticise or even tweet against Modi, government policies and Hindutva.
London: On a cold November morning in 2022, writer and activist Amrit Wilson picked up a letter that arrived at the doorstep of her home in London.
The letter, sent by the high commission of India in London, accused the 82-year-old of involvement in “multiple anti-India activities” and engaged in “detrimental propaganda” against the Indian government, which were “inimical to the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India”.
The notice did not provide instances or supply proof of such involvement to support the allegations, only giving Wilson 15 days to explain why her overseas citizen of India (OCI) status, granted to her in 2017, should not be cancelled.
The OCI was created in 2005 under the Citizenship Act, 1955, to allow foreign citizens of Indian-origin or foreigners married to Indian citizens to enter India without a visa, reside, work and hold property, among other benefits.
Born in Kolkata, Wilson came to London in 1961 as a 21-year-old PhD student and stayed on, becoming an active voice on issues of racism and labour rights pertaining to South Asian women.
She acquired British citizenship in 2009 and made yearly visits to her home in Delhi and to the Berhampore Girls’ College in Murshidabad, West Bengal, founded by her parents in 1946.
At least two others who spoke to Article 14 narrated how their OCI status had been cancelled, effectively ending their ability to return to their country of origin. We can also confirm that three people of Indian origin were blacklisted for tweets against Hindu nationalism and voicing support for protests by farmers between 2020 and 2021.
I think this is also affecting foreign journalists and others since the Indian government is stopping some of them from coming to India if they report negatively.
Muslims Continue to be Persecuted
Sukanya Shantha reports for the Wire.
Mumbai: On January 23, Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Nitesh Rane visited Mira Road, located in the north of Mumbai. His visit was prompted by the violence that had erupted in the Nayanagar area of Mira Road on the night of January 21. Allegedly, a group of Muslim youth had manhandled Hindu youth after the latter entered a Muslim locality late at night, honking, playing loud music and chanting “Jai Shri Ram”. Accompanied by the region’s MLA Geeta Jain and several other BJP members, Rane met with the police commissioner of the Mira Bhayandar region. Soon after, he addressed the press.
Rane, a BJP representative who had travelled to the area approximately 500 kilometres away from his constituency of Kankavali in coastal Maharashtra, openly threatened the Muslim community and the police during the press conference. He used offensive language to address the Muslim community, made provocative statements, and urged the Hindu community to “unite and retaliate”. He further went on to verbally attack the police inspector of the Naya Nagar police station for allegedly “siding” with the Muslim community.
While Rane’s actions on January 23 warrant criminal action under the Indian Penal Code, the most alarming aspect is the fact that he made these statements while inside the commissioner’s office. Rane was permitted to address the press from the conference room of the Mira Bhayandar, Vasai Virar Police Commissionerate.
BJP and affiliates attacked a noted journalist’s car in Pune (Maharashtra) too. Will share the article in comments.
Caste in Fiction Lost in Translation
Dhiren Borisa and Akhil Katyal write for queerbeat in Caste under the quilt how English translations of Ismat Chughtai’s work hide the caste content in the original work.
Ismat Chughtai’s Urdu short story Lihaf (1942) is firmly part of the queer canon. Considered a seminal 20th century text about same-sex desire in South Asia, it is widely anthologised and makes a regular appearance in the English academy in university course modules such as ‘Queer Literature’, ‘Gender and Writing,’ and ‘Literature and Sexuality’. Here, it has been read by generations of students and faculty, almost always only in the English translation, rather than in a comparative framework in both languages. [...]
However, like most popular narratives, this one too has its unsaid secret. When we celebrate it as a queer story, it relies on a systematic forgetting of what the backbone of the story is — the everydayness of caste respectability. Caste respectability implies a world in which the perceived status of individuals and the social or cultural authority that they carry and practice is determined largely by their caste position.
Lihaf is a story about caste respectability and how it functions as a criterion about who is desirable and how. Desirability is not only arranged across the binary of gender—same-sex or opposite—but also, across the projected lines and rhetorics of caste. This has remained largely forgotten because the English translations of Lihaf over the years systematically mute the caste ecology of the text. They deliberately skip the caste slurs embedded in the text which provide the social locus of some of the key utterances and acts of worldbuilding in the text. If this were not the case, the proximity between Begum Jan and Rabbu would have been read as a difficult mixture of affection and touch on the one hand but also caste-based labour and servitude on the other. However, most readings ignore the latter.
The article does not say whether Chughtai’s has her character speak caste slurs in obliviousness or in protest; that is, to bring light to the casteism or because she was not aware of anything amiss in it. I suppose the answer is probably lost to us since the story is from 1942. All I can say is that the author was likely part of a group of progressive authors from the 1930s and 1940s (Marxist/socialist group, if I remember correctly) who challenged oppressive traditions in colonial India. So, it could be either (since Indian communists at least in the early decades thought that caste would disappear with economic advancement).
Sorry for the length of the India section. I did not want you to miss out on the caste article. Or the torture or suppression of dissent among diaspora. So, here we are.
Pakistan
Election Effects
Imran Khan’s party of independents won the most seats in Pakistan general election and assembly elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhthunwa but it does not look like they will be allowed to form a government.
Asad Rahim Khan writes for the Dawn prism about The day Pakistan voted in defiance… and hope
“It was strange, and it lasted just a few moments. But it felt like democracy. “
Depending on your politics, that winter may have frozen over in 2022 or in 2018, in 2007 or 1999, in 1985 or 1977, all the way back to that first soft coup in 1953. But it’s the same sad song each time — that whenever the popular will comes under threat, its guardians take the path of least resistance.
Not so on Thursday, when that path was opened up to the voters themselves, millions of them brand-new. Despite decrepit boomer analysts going on and on about how low the turnout would be, the country was and is in the middle of a generational shift — with voter rolls reflecting as much.
And by the time polling closed, the people had delivered Pakistan its greatest electoral upset since 1970. Delayed in two provinces for the better part of a year — with general polls written off for an extra three months — all it took the voter was nine hours.
Nine hours, too, to get their vote right: in response to the absurd Supreme Court judgment axing the electoral symbol of arguably the country’s most popular party, people voted for pyalas and nalkas and dolphins; chimtas and charpoys and shuttlecocks. Mass disenfranchisement was met with the kind of faith in democracy that, even in this day and age, held the power to astonish.
Yet, as Zahid Hussain writes for Dawn, syndicated (I think) in Scroll: Pakistan: Verdict loud and clear, but people’s mandate seems to have been stolen yet again (Yes, the Dawn link with a different heading is here)
It was perhaps the most consequential election in Pakistan’s recent history. Defying all odds, the voters turned out in record numbers. They have spoken out, loud and clear, and given their verdict. It was a vote for hope and democracy. But the people’s mandate seems to have been stolen yet again.
Events in the run-up to the elections had left little faith in the fairness of the polls. Still, the people came out, breaking down the walls of fear and hoping to bring change through the power of the ballot. The massive turnout of youth and women voters made the difference.
It was a protest vote against political repression and the status quo. Anti-establishment sentiment was quite palpable. The voting trend and initial poll results from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa indicated a total rout of parties seen as having the military’s backing, in particular the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf candidates took the lead in major constituencies.
Yet the final tally showed an incredibly different result. Many of the Pakistan Muslim League-N heavyweights who were lagging far behind Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-affiliated candidates till late night were declared the winners the next morning. How this amazing turnaround happened is anybody’s guess. However, it was a different story in KP, where the result could not be altered much. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf held its ground in its main bastion.
It is certainly not for the first time that the country has witnessed such a mysterious overnight turnaround of poll results. We saw it, too, in the 2018 elections. It all depends on who is the favourite of the security establishment at the time. There was no doubt that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was the main beneficiary of the “hand of God” in the previous election. But what happened this time has hardly any precedent.
The large-scale poll irregularities have drawn a strong international reaction. The United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union have separately expressed concerns about Pakistan’s electoral process and urged a probe into the reported irregularities.
It appears that PML-N (that is, Nawaz Sharif’s party) and PPP (Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s party) have come to an arrangement to form the government along with a few smaller parties all together making up the >134 seats (in 265 member assembly) needed to form the government. The Dawn edit on the subject tells you what they think of the potential of the new coalition.
THE country barely survived the trailer; now, it appears, a full five-year show has been penned for PDM 2.0. There is little that can be considered new or improved, and there are very few changes in the cast: the PML-N will once again take the lead under Shehbaz Sharif, with the PPP content with reprising its supporting role.
There will be the usual favourites — parties that were first herded into the PTI government, and then into the PDM: MQM, PML-Q and BAP, as well as familiar faces from the IPP. The directors will continue calling the shots, especially on critical matters like the economy and foreign affairs.
Their ‘backing’ will be the glue that holds the rickety government together, with legislation likely to be reduced to an on-demand farce. This ragtag bunch of ‘patriotic’ politicians will soon resume their mission of ‘saving’ Pakistan, despite making a hash of it the first time around.
It will be grating not only to PTI sympathisers, who voted for change, but also PML-N supporters how this arrangement has come to pass. The latter were told that these elections would usher in Nawaz Sharif’s fourth term as PM. Instead, it seems like his party ended up using his name and stature to strengthen another candidate’s hand.
Mr Sharif may have had an idea he was not the ‘preferred choice’, which could be why he did not campaign as aggressively as he was expected to. The manner in which his victory in this election was announced also seemed designed to put him in a corner. It is puzzling, though, why the seasoned politician did not refuse to play once it became clear he was being manipulated.
His decision to, instead, give the government to Shehbaz Sharif was a sad reminder of all that he had achieved and was made to lose over his career. Still, he has ensured that his daughter will get a head start. The Sharifs have deemed Maryam Nawaz ready to take over as Punjab chief minister— a major responsibility. It remains to be seen how successful she is in regaining lost ground.
Meanwhile, the PPP has emerged as the most astute of the lot. It is likely to secure several constitutional posts despite refusing to carry the PML-N’s baggage.
I hope South Asia gets out of our funk soon. Climate change and wars will not wait.
Sri Lanka
Erosion of Education
Kaushalya Perera writes for SSALanka (Social Scientist Association Lanka) about university education in Sri Lanka.
In 2022, during the Budget Speech, Ranil Wickremesinghe said that “it is necessary to examine whether all sections of the society are receiving equitable benefits through health services and free education that is currently provided” (6).[1] The year after, in 2023, he said that Sri Lankans are not benefiting from free education fully, and to this end, “a series of comprehensive reforms will be undertaken” (157).[2] In both instances, he then proceeded to propose a severely stunted budgetary allocation for education.
Wickremesinghe is only the latest in a long line of public representatives to malign State universities[3], which they have done as a precursor to reducing resources for that sector. Tellingly, despite changes in government, the rhetoric in the argument for defunding State universities has not changed, which makes it State policy. For at least two decades, a systematic campaign has been conducted by successive governments to portray State universities as inefficient institutions that house violent agitators.
Since 2012, for example, two contradictory tropes regarding undergraduates of State universities have been circulating in both Sinhala and English newspapers. On the one hand, undergraduates are naive victims of third parties with political agendas. On the other, they are violent agitators rampaging in the streets and damaging everything in sight. Through both narratives, universities are portrayed as lawless spaces, conveying the idea that academics were not ‘doing their job’ or administrators are ‘weak’ (Perera 2018). Such portrayals are important in building a negative image of State universities, and a discourse that State universities are a waste of public funds. Such public perceptions have helped justify successive governments’ support for the privatisation of higher education.
To tease out the ways in which privatisation of higher education entangles these different types of institutions, this essay focuses on three factors: resource allocation to State universities; State-support for private higher education institutions (HEIs); and the loan-driven policy environment.
Kaushalya Perera (PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of English in the University of Colombo, and a member of the ‘Kuppi Collective’.
And Erosion of Freedom
The Friday Forum has a statement published in the Colombo Telegraph about the growing authoritarianism in Sri Lanka.
The PMD document challenging the Opposition to impeach the President if he abuses power, demonstrates the manner in which, in the post war years, this office has been transformed into something even worse than the powerful executive presidency originally created by the 1978 constitution. President Wickremesinghe is clearly seeking to carry this office to an even higher level of an authoritarian dictatorship, with the justification of having to seek solutions to national bankruptcy.
The time has come for us as citizens to demand that the abolition of the executive Presidency is realized as a matter of urgency in 2024. It is a toxic model of governance that has damaged public institutions. All the major political parties in this country made this promise and never fulfilled it. All Presidents who came to office, except President Chandrika Kumaranatunga, failed the nation in this regard. The draft constitution of 2000 which President Kumaratunga’s government presented, providing for abolition of the Executive Presidency could not be adopted by parliament because of the conduct of the Leader of the Opposition, who was at that time, current President Ranil Wickremesinghe. He and his UNP rejected this constitution and tore the document during the debate in parliament. The disagreement was not in regard to the text of this constitution, but a provision on who would head the new government. It is classic irony that 24 years later, Mr Wickremesinghe is trying to strengthen the Executive Presidency and transform it into a political dictatorship beyond the limits of the constitution. His rationale appears to be his personal vision or “Idiri Dekma” or what he thinks is best for the country. Is this a new articulation of another Executive President’s “Vistas of Prosperity”?
Before the excerpt the article lists the recent causes for alarm. It ends with the names of people who wrote the statement/article.
(The Friday Forum is an informal group of concerned citizens pledged to uphold norms of democracy, good governance, the rule of law, human rights, media freedom and tolerance in our pluralist society.)
That is it for today. Until next Friday, everyone. Take care. Stay safe. Be well. May we, despite all, have faith in humanity and hope for the world because without that faith, we cannot change this world. Despair is not an option.