Sri Lanka is paying the price for choosing bigotry over common sense, which is something India will never do
A protester holds a placard during an anti-government demonstration outside the Sri Lanka prime minister’s official residence in Colombo. Pic/AFP
It’s hard for a country when a man who belongs in jail ends up becoming a senior leader like its president or prime minister. Sri Lanka is finding this out the hard way, thanks to Mahinda Rajapaksa and his extended family. He has been one of the most incompetent leaders ever to emerge out of Asia, but no one appears to have cottoned on to that fact because he hasn’t allowed people to broadcast it. Until now, that is.
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The residents of Sri Lanka have been protesting on the streets for weeks, camping out outside Parliament, denouncing their government. They want President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother Mahinda to resign not just for economic mismanagement, but for unprecedented corruption that has brought their country to its knees. They are running out of food and medical supplies, and are on the verge of being locked out of international markets. There have been no press conferences because, like all cowards, Rajapaksa is afraid of tough questions from journalists.
The Rajapaksas came to power because of bigotry. They emerged after a quarter-century-long conflict that pitted Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese residents against Tamils, and Gotabaya was seen as a military leader who helped defeat the latter. When the Sri Lankans voted him to power, they did this not only because he promised them a new era of peace and prosperity—or ‘acche din’, as some might say in our neck of the woods—but because there was an implicit promise of maintaining the status quo, reinforcing the Orwellian truth that all residents are equal in the eyes of the law, but some are more equal than others.
Luckily, India doesn’t do what countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan always have. We don’t choose leaders on the basis of bigotry, because we are a peaceful nation that genuinely accepts all Indians as our brothers and sisters. We would never choose a leader who issues veiled threats, or stays silent when some Indians are being attacked, raped, and murdered by other Indians. We have a history of selecting representatives who believe in the idea of India as much as we do, not leaders who adopt the British policy of ‘divide and rule’ to destroy the fabric of our society. We don’t give ourselves enough credit for being kind, welcoming, tolerant people. It’s why we rarely have riots within our borders.
India is not like Sri Lanka or Pakistan because we aren’t obsessed with religious beliefs like those countries are. We are obsessed about things that matter, like food security, healthcare, job opportunities, and how our country can exploit its massive young labour force to lift millions out of poverty. We would never spend all our time focusing on what people are eating, who they pray to, or who they marry, because that is none of our business. We are an intelligent bunch of people, and Sri Lanka could have learned a lot from us if they were to stop wasting time on dividing themselves.
We don’t praise ourselves as much as we should, which is probably why the West targets us, unfairly, all the time. A while ago, for instance, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that his country was monitoring what he described as a rise in human rights abuses in India. It was laughable because of how he confused us with our neighbours. We have never had a problem with human rights because we respect all men, women and children, irrespective of religion or caste.
One hopes Sri Lanka will emerge from this crisis soon. When it does, one also hopes it will make more pragmatic choices and learn from us. One hopes it will start to focus on what governments actually do to make the lives of all residents better, because that is the only job they are tasked with. Hopefully, the Sri Lankans will start to rate their leaders on actual achievements rather than dog whistles and PR campaigns—the sort of things we would never tolerate in India.
Sri Lanka may never be the same again. It has been brought to its knees because its people chose prejudice and hate over common sense and love. Its why an incompetent clown who should have been arrested for crimes against humanity was allowed to occupy the highest seat of power. Politicians who oversee communal riots and acts of genocide belong in jail, not Parliament. Luckily for us, leaders like these can never emerge in our country. India is still safe.
When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper
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