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).
In an Indian National Congress (INC) ruled state, Muslims are being mobbed by Hindu Supremacists and a Cabinet Minister suggested asking store keepers to display their identification, noting their religion, in a market. Dalit colonies are being burnt in Bihar, which is under Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance governance. Baloch continue to face enforced disappearances in Pakistan. Sri Lankan elections indicate winds of change. But the racism towards Tamils continue. Read these and more stories in today’s edition.
India
Anti-Muslim Hate in INC governed Himachal Pradesh
Early this month, Hindu Supremacists started hate marching against a mosque in Shimla, capital of Himachal Pradesh. The Press Trust of India report published in the Hindu.
Police used water cannons on Friday (September 13, 2024) to disperse protestors demanding the demolition of a portion of a mosque built on encroached government land in Himachal Pradesh's Mandi town.
The mosque management committee have been served a notice by the Mandi municipal corporation to remove the encroachment within 30 days. According to the notice, the mosque stands on 232 square metres of land while the approval granted was just for 45 square metres.
Raising slogans of "Jai Shi Ram", the protesters initially held a march in the Mandi market area and sat on a dharna at Seri manch. Later, when they made attempts to proceed towards the mosque, police stopped them and used water cannons to bring the situation under control.
Security had been beefed up by the police in Mandi with the deployment of heavy force after Hindu outfits gave the call for the protest march.
The thing to note here is that in most places, a lot of construction by Hindus and Muslims are probably in government land. A lot of rich people encroach in Delhi for example. However, Muslims are being selectively targeted in the past decade, especially past few years, for demolition. Not just that. In some cases, illegality is a matter of opinion since the structures and settlement predate independent India. So, you could call it government stealing land.
Members of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal have demanded that all illegal structures belonging to the Muslim community be demolished, alongside encroachments on government land across the state.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu appealed to the people of the state to maintain peace and brotherhood.
"I have appealed to everyone to maintain peace and make no provocative statements. No one is allowed to take the law into their hands. We respect everyone. The land of Himachal has respect for all religions," Mr. Sukhu said after an all-party meeting in Shimla.
He said the people of the Muslim community have themselves come forward and offered to demolish unauthorised structures. They even demolished a portion of the mosque in Mandi on Thursday (September 13, 2024), Mr. Sukhu added.
The Chief Minister said that the all-party meeting agreed that peace and brotherhood should prevail in the state and that all unauthorised construction should be dealt with strictly as per the law.
No one has the right to hurt the sentiments of any community, he added.
The reaction of the Chief Minister is the only difference between a Congress governed and a BJP/Alliance governed state. In Uttar Pradesh, they are proud of it. In Himachal, they obfuscate. But Muslims still feel besieged.
As bad as this news was the news that broke yesterday or day before that the Himachal Pradesh government is considering local store owners to display their identity cards prominently on storefronts (especially eateries) so that the religion of the owner can be identified. Apparently, they were scared of migrants, or so they say. After much outrage from progressives targeting Rahul Gandhi and Mr. Kharge, they changed their mind. The Hindu Bureau reports.
A day after a State Cabinet Minister said that it had been decided to make it mandatory for street vendors to display their identity cards, the Himachal Pradesh government on Thursday (September 26) stated that no such decision had been taken so far.
In a statement released from Shimla, a government spokesperson said, “Numerous suggestions have been received from different sections of society regarding the street vendors policy. So far, the government has not taken any decision to mandatorily display nameplates or other identification by the vendors on their stalls.”
The statement said the government was committed to address the concerns of street vendors and would consider all the suggestions carefully before taking any decision.
A seven-member committee, which includes legislators from the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been constituted to address the matter. “The Committee would review suggestions of various stakeholders, before submitting its recommendations to the State government. Once their detailed recommendations are submitted, the Cabinet would carefully evaluate them before making any final decisions on the matter,” it added.
Taken by surprise, the Congress ‘high command’ downplayed the issue. In Jammu, talking to journalists on the issue, Congress in-charge for Himachal Pradesh Rajeev Shukla said, “...relating this matter to Yogi (referring to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath) pattern is not right as they do things surrounding politics and communal basis. Here (Himachal) there’s no such a thing.” He said in Himachal Pradesh, a committee has been set up to look into the issues of street vendors and its purpose is to regulate the street vendors and no order has been issued regarding display of any name of identity.
Dalit Harm
Dalits across the subcontinent face violence every day. We had one such incidence a few days back when 34 houses in a Dalit community were torched by those whom the Hindu calls land mafia. Amit Bhelari reports for the Hindu.
A Dalit tola (hamlet) was attacked Wednesday night, and at least 34 houses were set on fire by alleged land mafia at Krishna Nagar village under Mufassil Police station in Bihar’s Nawada district.
Villagers said that the land mafia, who numbered in the dozens, allegedly fired several rounds.
There is panic among the people living in the village and police are continuously conducting raids to nab the culprits. So far 15 people have been arrested by the police.
On Thursday, the Nawada police issued a press statement saying the homes of 34 families were burnt, 21 completely and 13 partially, by miscreants and there was no report of any casualty.
Till Wednesday night 11 people were arrested, including the main accused Nandu Paswan; by Thursday morning four more people had been arrested.
Explaining the cause of the of the fire, Nawada Superintendent of Police Abhinav Dhiman said, “There was a land dispute going on between two sides. The people who set the house on fire claimed that it was their land on which these people were settled. We have deployed the police force and magistrate and will camp in the village for next three to four days.
Most of the people living in this village hail from the Manjhi community.
Police have lodged the case on the statement of one villager Vyas Muni and named 28 people in the FIR. Three country-made pistols, three missed-fire round bullets, two empty cartridges, six motorbikes have been recovered as part of the investigation.
A villager Gorelal Ravidas whose house is burnt said, “Earlier also, Nandu Paswan had threatened but last night he came along with his men carrying petrol and guns. First they fired in the air and then burnt the house using petrol. We all have to run away leaving everything inside the house.”
Another affected villager Muneshwari Devi said, “They started abusing us when they came here and shouted that they would throw bombs and better to leave the house. I took my children and went outside to save my life.”
The article does not mention the caste of the perpetrators. The opposition have demanded action.
Leaving Modi’s India
More and more Indians are migrating through unauthorized channels to the West. Part of the reason is economic hardship and the other part, religious persecution. Makepeace Sitlhou reports for In These Times.
One morning in March 2023, Sukhwinder Singh woke up in the Valleywise Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, shocked to see his brother and a friend by his bedside. This meant Singh — a 42-year-old Sikh migrant from Punjab, India — had made it to the United States. But he soon realized that his arrival had come at a terrible price.
The last thing Singh remembered was crossing through knee-deep water near the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Arizona. As he tried to keep pace with the coyotes and other migrants, he passed out. Within 24 hours, U.S. Border Patrol agents found him near the Yuma crossing and brought him to a local hospital. A week later, he was transported to Phoenix for further treatment, where he remained in a coma for a month and a half. When he finally awoke, he learned that his passage to the land of opportunity had cost him an arm and both legs.
According to his doctors, Singh (who asked not to use his real name for fear of political backlash in case he is deported back to India) had gone into septic shock caused by a bacterial infection on his right foot — likely contracted in a hotel pool in Mexico, waiting for the next stage of his journey: a two-day drive inside an insulated, rickety truck packed with migrants, heading towards the border.
A few days before Singh was found, another Indian migrant — a 32-year-old man from Gujarat — fell while scaling the 30-foot border wall in Tijuana with his three-year-old son in his arms. The boy survived with minor injuries; his father did not.
It is not just US that has been seeing a record increase in migration through such means. I read a report months back about how Indians moving to UK by boats also had increased. However, it appears, US has the most numbers.
In 2022, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency saw a record high of 63,927 Indian migrants apprehended at the southern border, more than double the number from 2021. In 2023, the number increased again, to 96,917 migrants, accounting for 3% of all migrant crossings there.
Mass Indian migration has become so widespread that migrants have coined the term “dunkis” to describe their rapidly growing numbers. The term originates from a Punjabi idiom meaning to hop from one place to another and the English word “donkey,” both referencing the long walks immigrants undertake. The trend is so notable that in 2023 a Bollywood movie featuring one of India’s top stars used the term as its title.
While Biden administration doesn’t just ignore but actively obfuscate about India’s religious persecution, in India, people migrate to escape political and religious violence.
State repression has worsened dramatically for some government critics and religious minorities, with Muslims and Christians roundly targeted. Besides using fringe Hindutva groups to attack religious and ethnic minorities, Modi’s government has led campaigns demonizing Muslims and passed laws to disenfranchise, evict and detain them on the grounds that longstanding Muslim citizens are in fact “illegal immigrants.” Indian Christians have also been persecuted, including by being subjected to forced conversions by Hindu Right groups.
Less attention has been paid to India’s Sikhs, an economically affluent community that represents less than 2% of India’s population overall but make up the majority of the northwestern state of Punjab, which borders Pakistan. And some anecdotal evidence suggests that Indians seeking asylum in the United States appear to be disproportionately from Punjab, compared to other states like Gujarat and Haryana, with Punjabi now the most widely spoken South Asian language in U.S. immigration courts. That’s partly because Sikhs’ comparative wealth makes it easier for them to emigrate than other Indians. But it’s also because many Sikh Punjabis have been vocal opponents of Modi’s government, leading recent farmers’ protests against the BJP’s corporate-friendly agricultural “reforms” and, in some cases, opposing Hindu nationalist attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.
Sukhwinder Singh is among that number. A mechanical engineer by profession, Singh hadn’t wanted to leave India but says he was forced to due to “religious persecution” as a “Khalistani” — the name of an armed Sikh separatist movement that began in the 1980s to advocate for a sovereign Sikh state carved out of Indian and Pakistani land. Although militancy was suppressed by brutal counterinsurgency measures in the late ’90s, various political groups continue to advocate for Sikh self-determination through peaceful means.
Today, decades later, some Sikhs living abroad embrace the name Khalistani to describe their support for self-determination. But within India, the term is tantamount to calling someone a terrorist, and Sikhs who dissent from Modi’s government are often smeared with the label to discredit their advocacy or political participation.
The article describes the route the migrants take and their experiences. I would recommend you read it in full.
Caste, Harris and the US Elections
The New York Times has an article—from a brahman woman—on the play of caste in US elections this season. I’d have preferred that someone like Yashica Dutt had written it because a Dalit perspective was the one necessary. But she was it appears denied. Until she writes on it, we have to make do with this one from Tanvi Misra (MSN link).
Like other Indians now in the U.S., Gopalan and the Chilukuris benefited greatly from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which did away with existing race-based exclusions and opened America’s door to immigrants from around the world. These laws favored professionals, selecting Indian immigrants from a narrow pool of applicants already at the height of privilege. Both Harris’s mother and the Chilukuris are Brahmins, topmost in India’s hierarchy of castes—“backgrounds in which access to educational capital was a defining feature,” says anthropologist Ajantha Subramanian, author of The Caste of Merit: Engineering Education in India. This thin upper crust, in addition to having intergenerational educational advantages, also benefited most from “the postcolonial state’s investment in higher education, especially in science, medicine, and engineering,” according to Subramanian. Gopalan was a graduate of the University of Delhi, and Krish Chilukuri of the Indian Institute of Technology, the elite engineering college created by India’s government after the country won independence from the British in 1947. IIT graduates were chief among those who took advantage of the U.S. immigration overhaul, especially from the 1990s onward, as caste-focused affirmative action policies were rolled out in India and the tech boom kicked off in Silicon Valley. Caste and accompanying advantages helped Indians obtain specialized education in India and then migrate legally to the U.S. Once they arrived, these Indians were well equipped to prosper.
“It’s important to situate caste not as a strand that weaves into how we navigate the world, but rather the very foundation of how Indians—and South Asians—see the world,” says Christina Dhanuja, a writer, caste researcher, and founding member of the Global Campaign for Dalit Women.
The caste system, which colonial powers only strengthened, was legally abolished in post-independence India. Yet it remains entrenched, dictating marriage decisions, culinary practices, housing distribution, and the workings of the justice system, among other aspects of Indian life. (The vegetarianism that Kaling and Harris claim is specific to their caste, and not something all South Indians adhere to, for instance.) The caste system is a violent paradigm that denies basic needs and human rights to those it relegates to its lowest ranks. When Indians migrated around the world, they took caste with them, just as B.R. Ambedkar, India’s foremost political theorist, anti-caste thinker, and the drafter of its constitution, had predicted.
The author says that India abolished caste. We did not. We abolished untouchability and prohibited discrimination based on caste. But identification by caste has not been abolished.
As she says, South Indians are not vegetarian though Harris and her family have said that multiple times. Around 90+ of South Indians eat meat. Brahmans form 1% to 3% of Kerala and Tamil Nadu and 4% or less of Karnataka.
The first South Asians arrived at U.S. ports in the 19th and early 20th centuries from a pre-independence, pre-partitioned India (which included what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh). These immigrants typically were not upper-caste Hindus (who were restricted by caste norms from traveling abroad at the time). Most were working-class men who fled poverty wrought by colonial rule and ended up working in the American agriculture, shipping, and logging industries. In his book Bengali Harlem, historian Vivek Bald unearths the histories of Bengali migrants—largely Muslim—who abandoned their low-wage posts on British trade ships for life in the United States. Race-based immigration laws of that era banned immigration from Asia, so many were what we would now call “undocumented.”
The earliest immigrants from the Indian subcontinent were, therefore, very different in profile from the ones who arrived after 1965. What all had in common, however, was that they encountered America’s racial hierarchy upon arrival. To be American was to be white—as was explicitly stated by 18th-century naturalization laws, designed to exclude enslaved and free Black folks, Native Americans, indentured labor, and anyone else not seen as white.
The foreignness of South Asians, when accentuated through clothing (turbans and saris), sometimes confused the color line but never dissolved it. Sikh workers in the United States faced racist, xenophobic violence at the turn of the 20th century; Indian residents of the U.S. who organized against colonial rule in their home country were systematically surveilled. Eventually, South Asians situated themselves along the Black-white racial binary in a variety of ways, consciously and unconsciously. Bald’s book describes, for instance, that Bengalis who jumped ship in the early 20th century integrated into Black and Puerto Rican families in cities like New York and New Orleans. Some South Asians later aligned themselves with the Civil Rights struggles of Black Americans—writing in Black leftist publications, for instance. So Gopalan’s marriage to a Black man from Jamaica was not unprecedented for South Asian–Americans, but less common among her peer group, the upper-caste Indians who migrated later.
Earlier on, many of the elite Indian-Americans leveraged their caste to bargain for rights reserved for white people in the U.S. and intermarried into white communities. The case of Bhagat Singh Thind is probably best known. In 1923, his lawyers argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that Thind deserved citizenship as a “pure-blood high caste Aryan.” Scores of others employed the same strategy, including Indian political asylees who had been organizing against British colonial rule and had spoken out against racism in America. The common assumption among Indian immigrants has been “that the path to social status and financial security requires avoiding the stigma of blackness,” Subramanian says.
With the arrival of highly educated, caste-privileged Indians post-1965, the strategy shifted slightly: This group readily embraced the “model minority” image, declaring themselves different—innately better—than less affluent populations in order to access spaces traditionally reserved for white Americans. “The IT boom has helped in this regard because it has made Indianness synonymous with technical skill and professional success,” Subramanian notes.
It is an informative piece though I hope we get an article from someone like Dutt, a Dalit in USA, soon.
I hope someone gets her on it soon.
Pakistan
Baloch Oppression in Pakistan
Late August, the Baloch National Movement conducted a terrorist attack in Pakistan’s Balochistan. Pakistani elites started demanding Baloch activists to apologise (as if they were responsible for it). Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur writes for Dissent Today in the wake of that: Those Demanding Apologies from the Baloch Need a Lesson in History
There are many events that have contributed to the present crises in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, significantly shaping the mindset and attitudes of the Baloch people. Some of these key events include:
- March 27, 1948, when Pakistan forcibly annexed the Kalat State
- The attack on Khan Kalat’s residence on October 6, 1958, which resulted in his imprisonment
- The hanging of seven Baloch companions of Nawab Nauroz Khan in Hyderabad and Sukkur jails on July 15, 1960, after trials in military courts
- The unconstitutional dismissal of the Ataullah government on February 13, 1973
- The arrest of top Baloch leaders on August 16, 1973
- The wrongful arrest of Baloch leader Khair Bakhsh Marri on January 12, 2000
- The bombardment of Dera Bugti on March 17, 2005
- The brutal killing of former minister Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti on August 26, 2006
- The assassination of activist Sabeen Mahmud on April 24, 2015, after she hosted a discussion on Balochistan
More recently, the use of water cannons, tear gas, and baton charges against the protesting families of missing persons in Islamabad on December 21, 2023; the shooting of participants in a protest march in Mastung on July 27, 2023; and the brutal attacks on peaceful protesters in Gwadar on July 28-29 have further fueled the grievances of the Baloch people. Additionally, we must remember the names of individuals such as Saba Dashtyari, the victims found in the Tutak mass graves, Comrade Ghulam Mohammad and his friends, Hayat Baloch, and many other Baloch people who lost their lives.
BLA attack and demands for an “apology”
Completely disregarding the history of oppression faced by the Baloch people, Pakistan’s intelligentsia—along with certain segments of civil society—is currently demanding apologies from Dr. Mahrang Baloch, a young woman leading the Baloch struggle against oppression. This demand follows a recent terror attack carried out by Baloch separatists.
The article provides a history of Pakistan’s oppression of Baloch and their separatism.
Perhaps due to the enforced disappearances of Baloch men, but it is women who lead the Baloch movement at present. For Dawn, Muhammad Akbar Notezai writes on The Women of Baloch Spring.
On January 27, 2024 in Quetta, the leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), Dr Mahrang Baloch, addressed a crowd of thousands, which comprised men and women, many of them young students. Having recently returned from a month-long sit-in outside Islamabad’s National Press Club, held to protest enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan, Mahrang said that this movement was the “voice of Baloch people, from Nokundi to Parom and Koh-i-Suleman to Makran.”
The recent terrorist attacks in Balochistan by the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, which resulted in the tragic loss of the lives of almost 40 people, tend to take the media spotlight because of the sheer violence involved, but they also do a disservice to the efforts of movements such as the BYC, which have attempted to highlight the alienation of Balochistan’s educated youth in a peaceful and constitutional manner.
Gatherings such as the one in Quetta in January, accompanied by such a large number of attendees, have now become commonplace for the BYC. But what makes this movement unique and sets it apart from any other such group is that women — specifically Baloch women — are the face of this movement.
But how did the BYC come to become such a force? Who are the women spearheading this movement? And how is it that, in a conservative and still-largely patriarchal society, men are turning up in droves to hear these women speak?
The current movement sprung up in the wake of social and governmental violence in 2020.
In May 2020, three men, allegedly associated with a local death squad, stormed into a house in Danuk, Turbat, which resulted in the killing of four-year-old Bramsh Baloch’s mother. That incident gave birth to these ongoing protests and, in the words of BYC activist Sammi Deen Baloch, that is when the BYC came into being.
But it was the killing of Balaach Baloch in November 2023, supposedly in an ‘encounter’ in Turbat with the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), that sparked a widespread movement in Kech district. The family of Balaach and civil society activists alleged that Balaach had been apprehended by the CTD the month before and had been presented before a local court, which had remanded him in police custody for 10 days. The protests against the alleged extrajudicial killing culminated in the Islamabad sit-in, led by Mahrang under the platform of BYC. This is when Mahrang and the BYC captured the attention of the nation.
After a big power show in Quetta, the BYC held a gathering in Gwadar under the banner of the ‘Baloch Raji Muchi’ [Baloch National Gathering] this July, in which hundreds of protestors from across Balochistan, and other Baloch-dominated areas in the country, joined in — despite the fact that the state had imposed restrictions upon the peaceful protestors in order to stop them from going to Gwadar. After that, the BYC held large gatherings in several places across Balochistan.
According to Mohammad Arif, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Balochistan, “There are three factors fuelling the discontent felt by the people of Balochistan, which is why they protest. Firstly, Balochistan has been ignored by the centre from the very beginning. Secondly, there is rampant corruption in Balochistan, especially by the politicians and bureaucrats, which has hindered development and progress in the province. Thirdly, the region has become a playground for international politics in the wake of Chinese involvement in the region.”
The article goes on to talk about how women became the face of the movement.
IMF Loans and the Economy
The IMF approved a USD 7 Billion loan for Pakistan. The Dawn editorial says it gives the government breathing space.
In spite of delays, the loan’s approval was never in doubt. The question is: will this programme help Pakistan emerge from its economic crisis? Or, more importantly, will the government be able to meet the stringent loan conditions? This question becomes even more crucial because lenders like ADB believe that rising political and institutional tensions may make it difficult to implement the reforms that Pakistan has committed to delivering. Struggling with boom-and-bust economic cycles for decades, the country has been facing anaemic economic growth, high inflation and a balance-of-payments crisis for over two years now.
So far Islamabad has warded off a default and accessed IMF funds, with generous support from China, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. With debt payments totalling $90bn over the next three years, this support will not be enough for the country to come out of the crisis. No doubt the programme is crucial to end the uncertainty around Pakistan’s ability to pay its debts. But the government needs to go beyond the stipulations of the bailout to drive long-term economic growth and break out of endless IMF rescue cycles. Is it prepared to execute the IMF-mandated reforms and also look beyond for longer-term stability? Its actions so far, especially its taxation measures, inspire little hope.
Pakistan’s Prime Minisher Shehbaz Sharif thanked China, Saudi Arabia, and UAE for supporting them.
Sri Lanka
Winds of Change in Sri Lanka
Meera Srinivasan reports for the Hindu that Anura Dissnayake was sworn in as Sri Lanka’s President on Sep 23.
“I am not a magician; I am not a miracle-worker. There are things I know and don’t know. But I will commit myself to doing the right thing at all times, and lead a collective effort to rebuild our nation,” he said, in his first address as President, just after being sworn in at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo. It is the building that protesters stormed in July 2022, as they ousted former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa amid a severe financial meltdown.
Mr. Dissanayake, 55, takes over the country’s top office when the island nation struggles to put a crippling economic crisis behind it. Scores of poor families are looking for urgent relief from the everyday economic strain amid high living costs and utility bills that shot up as part an IMF-led programme that introduced painful austerity measures.
Mr. Dissanayake secured 42.31 % of the votes to win the September 21 presidential election, that he closely fought with Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa and former President Ranil Wickremesinghe. His National People’s Power (NPP) Alliance campaigned on a plank of anti-corruption and has promised to change the country’s political culture. Mr. Dissanayake’s victory marks a shift in Sri Lankan politics, away from the country’s traditional parties and political elite. He leads the NPP’s chief political constituent, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front), a party with Marxist-Leninist ideology.
Although Mr. Dissanayake emerged winner in the national election, he did not secure the majority vote share among the country’s ethnic minority communities, especially the Tamils of the north and east. In a message apparently targeting them and others who voted for his rivals, he said: “Democracy helped me win. Some voted for me, and others didn’t. But my pledge is to work hard to win the trust of those who didn’t vote for me as well. This is an important part of my Presidency.” Further, he pledged support to businesses and said he would work with all international actors, while keeping Sri Lanka’s best interests in mind.
The new President declared that the parliament does not reflect the people’s will—other parties have a majority there—and dissolved it. He also appointed a new prime minister. Another report from Meera Srinivasan for the Hindu.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Tuesday (September 24, 2024) appointed MP and former academic Harini Amarasuriya as Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, as part of a four-member Cabinet under him that will lead policy until the parliamentary elections scheduled on November 14. The date for the general elections was announced through a gazette issued late on Tuesday, which said the parliament would be dissolved from midnight.
After Sri Lankans elected Mr. Dissanayake to the country’s top office in the September 21 presidential polls, he resigned as a Member of Parliament, and a National People’s Power [NPP] member took his place. The NPP Alliance has 3 MPs in the 225-member legislature, which is expected to be dissolved soon in preparation for the conduct of the general elections.
The new PM seems to have cross partisan and cross country support.
Ms. Amarasuriya is Sri Lanka’s third woman Prime Minister, after Sirimavo Bandaranaike — one of the first woman leaders in the world — and her daughter Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, who held the post briefly, before being elected President.
An anthropologist by training, Ms. Amarasuriya taught at the Open University of Sri Lanka, until the NPP in 2020 nominated her to the Parliament through the country’s “national list” system, that allocates seats based on a party’s vote share.
Many in Sri Lanka, including in the political opposition, welcomed the appointment of Ms. Amarasuriya as Prime Minister. In a congratulatory message on social media platform ‘X’, Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa said: “I hope your appointment will inspire women of Sri Lanka to bring their talents, strength, and vision to the forefront.”
Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister obtained her bachelor’s degree in sociology in India, at Hindu College, University of Delhi. She pursued her master’s in Australia and obtained a PhD from the University of Edinburgh.
Does this mean that Sri Lanka will finally see change? Ashok S. Seneviratne comments on the possibility for Colombo Telegraph.
Since March 2024, I have written 24 articles about the change Sri Lanka and its people have wanted since 1948, and the Anura Kumara Dissanayake/NPP has committed accordingly. The change that the people and the country want to witness is massive in terms of economic, social, political, cultural, and many more. A peaceful or nonviolent presidential election marked the beginning of the realization of change, while the opposition advocated violent polls because of their bankruptcy in many ways. The presidential election paved the way for a peaceful transition of power under the power greed or part and parcel of the cunning politics and politicians for whom no more job vacancies in the country unless to have a peaceful retirement as the new generation Aragalaya youth are ready and committed look after country without power greed and cunning politics. Instead of many kilometers long parades of Army, Navy, and Airforce in the Gale face green along with the installation of temporary toilets for emergencies, the president’s swearing-in ceremony was confined to the president’s office, with only a few people attending, and witnessing the graceful event. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) only spoke briefly about democracy and people’s rights, which is his ultimate commitment to the people and the country. The above all are part and parcel of the expected change and, most importantly, saving taxpayers money. Also, people managed to save money on firecrackers and many other such expenses, which is against massive money spent on “Good News” for nothing due to the foolishness of the politicians. Given all this, the man sitting in the president’s chair is visionary; everything is simple and at minimum cost and time. In short, cunning politicians and their followers can learn a lot from AKD, but the lessons are too heavy in their reach due to low-quality mindsets. Given the above, this paper aims to highlight a few facts about change in the right direction.
The events mentioned above and the situations are part and parcel of the country’s bankruptcy, so the AKD started the change significantly and truthfully so that the people who voted for AKD and did not vote, particularly for the latter, could feel and understand the change. The critical point is that people and the country can breathe fresh air as the government is with AKD/NPP. Indeed, it is a long way to go, more than 76 years since 1948. However, AKD/NPP knows well how to walk along the victory meaningfully and constructively in many ways. First, relief will be provided along with the rising cost of living. For this, among many, the stability of the rupee is the foundation or the anchor. Second is the head-on dealing with all forms of corruption and fraud. Indeed, this may take time, but the new government will go for it after having the complete administrative set up under the banner of AKD/NPP or dissolving the parliament soon and eventually creating a new parliament. The above will not hurt the people any way because they trust and believe in AKD/NPP.
In general Colombo Telegraph is full of hopeful commentary on the elections. It is quite clear, irrespective of the results, that Sri Lankans voted for change. However, that does not mean the status of minoritised people in Sri Lanka might change for the better. Afterall, Janata Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) that Dissanayake leads has a history of violence against Tamils. Ariaratnam Gobikrishna writes an open letter to President Dissanayake about Tamil and Muslim aspirations. The letter is published in the Colombo Telegraph.
The Tamil population in the upcountry has long been the backbone of Sri Lanka’s tea industry, a key pillar of our export economy. Supporting and uplifting this community is not only a moral imperative but also an economic necessity. Improved living conditions, educational opportunities, and fair wages for these workers will result in a more robust and sustainable tea industry, which in turn will strengthen the national economy.
Similarly, the Muslim minority, with its strong cultural and familial ties to the Gulf nations, plays a crucial role in maintaining a steady flow of remittances to Sri Lanka. These remittances are a lifeline, especially in times of economic hardship. By recognizing and supporting the contributions of the Muslim community, we can ensure that this vital source of foreign revenue continues to bolster our economy.
Your administration has the unique opportunity to transform Sri Lanka into a nation where all communities feel valued and included. To achieve this, I propose the following initiatives:
1. Political Inclusivity: Encourage and facilitate the participation of minority communities in governance by supporting corruption-free parties that genuinely represent their interests. This will help build trust and ensure that the voices of all communities are heard in the decision-making process.
2. Economic Development: Create targeted economic development programs for the Northern and Eastern provinces, and the upcountry regions, focusing on infrastructure, education, and healthcare. This will enable these areas to become self-sustaining and reduce their reliance on the central government.
3. Reconciliation and Justice: Implement meaningful reconciliation measures to address the grievances of the Tamil community, including the demilitarization of civilian areas and the return of lands taken during the conflict. Establishing a transparent and fair process for addressing wartime abuses will help heal old wounds and promote national unity.
4. Diaspora Engagement: Develop a comprehensive strategy to engage the Tamil diaspora, encouraging them to invest in the development of their homeland. Providing assurances of stability and good governance will be key to unlocking this potential.
5. Supporting the Muslim Community: Recognize and support the vital economic role played by the Muslim community, particularly in maintaining the flow of remittances. Ensuring their security and well-being is crucial for the continued economic stability of our nation.
I find it troubling that Muslims are separately spoken of in these articles when most Muslims in Sri Lanka are Tamils. The Tamil identity should go beyond religion and should not be restricted to only Hindu Tamils. Tamils including Muslims would have been better.
I suppose Muslims see additional presecution as Muslims, which may be why they are named separately. But the terminology also speaks of divisions within the Tamil community. I hope such divisions are acknowledged and bridged.
That is it for today. Until next Friday, everyone. Stay safe. Be well. Take care.
May the minoritised and the migrants be free across the world.
