Insight By Sunil Kumar

August 24th 2011
Short of being ridiculous the JVP Genereal Secretary has had the nerve to portray the Government as inefficient and calls for a bringing down of the Government to replace it with what? A bunch of infighting UNP or the ever power hungry JVP with its own internal crises whose only tools to offer the population is the hollow rhetoric it seem to prefer spewing with nothing tangible to back it up. Wasn’t there those famous words of a former great US President who said “You can fool some of the people some of the time, all the people some of the time but never all the people all the time” applicable here and rings true relative to the JVP who seem to mistakenly delude themselves into believing that slogans and derring -do rhetoric alone would carry them towards achieving their objectives which to the contrary could be to their detriment.

 Mr. Tilvin Silva addressing the media during the nominations for the local council elections recently has somewhat incongruously and obviously misguidedly suggested that ” the Government has proved that it is a ‘failed administration ‘ incapable of solving any issues of the people and despite it has been able to win elections by having them intermittently and using state power and its assets in a very undemocratic manner. The government has not been able to solve any issues in the country.” In this respect it needs to be asked of Mr Silve whether he is implying that the Nation consists of imperceptive and undiscerning citizens whose very rationalities he seems to be disputing for him to be bold enough to make such irresponsible assertions at a time Sri Lanka has probably never seem such vast development and progress where the people are very content with the achievements of the Rajapaksha Administration which have reached unprecedented heights having eradicated the source which threatened to destroy the Nation and pointing perhaps to a time of national development and projected prosperity rivalled only by a bygone era of ancient Sinhala Kings when in a relative sense the land was prosperous, self sufficient, people were content and the Nation was fast becoming a role model for the world and a hub of activity.

Perhaps the rhetoric of Mr. Silva is envious rather than apprehensive where his own party could probably never get even close to what the present Administration has done and continues to do towards the well being of Sri Lanka and her people.

 What relevance there is in pointing out that “earlier governments could hold election throughout the country at once but this government has not been able to do so’ seems perplexing! If it is Government policy to take the election process in stages rather than in one big bang! and a prerogative of an administration which holds a two third majority and the right of choice to do so where there seems to be no objections from the people towards it so be it. The impending costs notwithstanding where the need for it was surely a felt one! .

His irrelevance of reasoning becomes more apparent by suggesting that ” burdening the masses even when an election is being held indicates the financial crisis confronted by the government ” where the need for elections obviously mandated by the Constitution seems to be bereft of his point of view in coining it with an imagined financial crisis and somewhat curious as to why he has not suggested a substantial alternative but carries on his jargon in a never ending outpouring of laments where in all probabilities he and his party would be better off throwing their lot in with the Government with no surreptitious ambitions to throw spokes in its wheel towards gaining some political advantage which in the present political climate of Sri Lanka is wishful thinking on his part also reflecting that of the JVP who don’t really seem to belong as part of her political infrastructure and neither have an entitlement to tyrannical comments inasmuch as the UNP did once .

 In a rank misconstruance of basic economics it seems to be difficult for him to percieve that any government is compelled to increase prices of gas relative to the world economy and the global crisis surrounding oil production due to problems in oil producing countries and the price increases of several other commodities which in his opinion has specially inconvenienced the urban community which is relatively true only if one considers their dependence on import costs as well as their non availability locally in a nation where inflation has sky rocketed albeit in better control than some other developing nations.

If it seems apparent that no interest has been taken to improve the income of the masses it is probably due to the weakness of the GDP if it exists in reality and the slow emergence of the sources on which the augmentation of National economy is dependent on which with the hurdles posed before the administration by the likes of the JVP and the UNP is not that difficult to comprehend. Nothing seems to pont to the importance of Foreign Investment towards job creation in the litany of the JVP Gen. Secretary who would in all probabilities have something adverse to say about it where in a open economy, job creation is dependent on such matters almost as a priority.

 On his part it seems a total affront to suggest that “the Government has to burden the people more and more as it is displaying a false development, most of these false development projects have already become white elephants and people have to carry the burden he added.” which seems the furthest from reality, a misconstrued choice of words and a fallacy as one looks around the Nation today, travels to all corners of the Island to marvel at the remarkable changes that have taken place in post insurgency Sri Lanka and the freedoms the people enjoy for which the Nation has to thank the President who has almost singlehandedly contributed to the cause and effect.

 The almost cryptic reference to the UNP and some analogies drawn with the Administration which suggests that ” the UNP too is amidst massive crises and has no time to think about people’s issues. The leadership crisis in the UNP has filtered out to the streets and all factions in the party are fighting to gain or protect the positions and it has been proved that the UNP has no time now nor is capable of finding solutions for people’s issues. That there is no difference between the policies of the UNP and that of Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse’s Government where Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse is following the open economic policy the UNP introduced in 1977 and that the policies of the UNP are being implemented more efficiently by the Mahinda Rajapakse Government and as such the UNP would not be necessary for this society hereafter” seems a garbled interpretation of the many political nuances that have been presented to the Nation in beneficial perspective today, by his definition albeit the Freudian slip apparent in his inadvertent commendations of the Government could not better emphasize the direction the Administratioin is taking towards the well being of Sri Lanka where the last thing the country needs at this moment is a party that has a different standpoint to that of the Government to undo what appears to be an unprecedented surge towards National development, posterity and the well being of a Nation once beseiged by the horrors of war and terrorism and an alternative whatever that may be, suggested by a representative of a party which has neither claim nor credentials to be equitable to the task by sole virtue of its track record and more than likely to drag the Nation down into a Socialistic morass and Communist idealogies that could set the nation decades backwards!

 There is also a need to touch on a subtle reference by the JVP GS to the Government’s mishandling of the so called ‘Grease Yakas’ which many believe could be the dark underhand doings of some subversive source with deliberate intent to bring the Government into disrepute. At the present time this is mere speculation but not without valid reckoning that there are indeed dark areas of organized crime with powerful links to people who do have a motive to slur the image of the Government and for anyone to be brazen enough to criticise the Government’s response as negative gives rise to the thought that there may be links between sources with a subversive past to this very phenomenon which will undoubtedly be dealt within its entirety and eliminated in due course by the Law Enforcement Agencies of the Nation who are at the present carrying on investigations and taking remedial and preventive action wherever necessary.

There seems nothing undemocratic in the direction of the Rajapaksha Administratioin in the eyes of many credible political analysts around the world with the exception of its Tamil diaspora adversaries and the new political journey alluded to by the general secretary of the JVP realistically began at the demise of the Tamil insurgent terror campaign lasting over three decades and effected by a leader capable of delivering the needs of the people as he has proved thus far although the fruits of his toil beyond a doubt will not be acheived overnight and should never be dictated to through meaningless cacophony and rhetoric which could prove to be a hindrance rather than a facility towards the ultimate objective of success and contentment for the people of Sri Lanka.

Hence when in an era of post insurgency prosperity and vast development in Sri Lanka, when a rival politician once part of another insurgency dares criticise the Government as inefficient and needing to be defeated, it seems like a clear cut case of ignorance and apathy!