{"id":150573,"date":"2025-07-06T17:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T00:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=150573"},"modified":"2025-07-06T17:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T00:18:09","slug":"indian-military-merchants-move-in-on-colombo-its-circuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/07\/06\/indian-military-merchants-move-in-on-colombo-its-circuits\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Military & Merchants Move in on Colombo & its\u00a0Circuits"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

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blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 29 June \u2013 05 July 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody has lashed out<\/p>\n\n\n\n

at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA<\/strong>),<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asian Development Bank (ADB)<\/strong>, & the World Bank<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

over their public criticism of amendments to the Electricity Act<\/strong>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

accusing them of bypassing diplomatic channels<\/strong> & politicising<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

the issue<\/em><\/strong>. \u2018This is not how it should be done. They can\u2019t work with us<\/p>\n\n\n\n

like this,\u2019 Minister Jayakody said in a tv interview on Thursday,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018They should have handled it more diplomatically instead of going public.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 see ee Industry<\/em><\/strong>, Energy Minister lashes out at international funding agencies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is no surprise to discover the USA\u2019s bankers & their Japanese bunraku (puppets)  \u2013 the whites & the honorary whites (yes, the US Envoy too!) \u2013 striding about the country, spreading legs & wiping mouths across the media, cozily contravening any Vienna diplomatic conventions. Colombo has long been an occupied colonial enclave \u2013 and it is no surprise to find India\u2019s merchants & their military moving in creepy lockstep to replace the old imperialist powers, this time as the USA\u2019s front paws & claws. Shenali Waduge<\/strong> tells us Sri Lanka\u2019s \u2018commercial capital & nerve centre\u2019<\/strong> \u2013 Western Province \u2013 is today the \u2018epicenter of India\u2019s strategic control & influence<\/strong>. The prolific & indefatigable Waduge has begun a series (by province) to unravel this steady Indian infiltration, which she dedicates to \u2018SL\u2019s foreign ministry, national defense thinktanks & those tasked to secure Sri Lanka\u2019s sovereignty\u2019 (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week saw the passing of naval historian Somasiri Devendra<\/em>. An ee<\/em><\/strong> maritime correspondent once asked Devendra about the 19th<\/sup> century English sabotage of Sinhala shipbuilding, and shipping, via insurance restrictions, etc, because the English ships could not compete with the Sinhala designs, etc. Devendra responded, \u2018Not only Sinhala, but Tamil & Muslim shipbuilding & shipping too.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Yet, the English had to permit their settler colonies <\/strong>to build their own ships. We wonder what the dearly departed Devendra would have thought about the 51% stake in state-owned Colombo Dockyard<\/strong>, first sold off to Japan\u2019s Onomichi, which now seems to have been allowed to sell it off to India\u2019s Defense Ministry\u2013owned Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders<\/strong>. Japan took over and ruined Colombo Dockyard because it was a threat to Japan, just as they saw the building of a state-owned cement plant in Kakesanthurai as a threat<\/strong> to cement traders from both India & Japan (Tokyo Cement, Insee, etc).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The secretive decision<\/strong> to facilitate the divestment of Colombo Dockyard to an Indian company was taken during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s visit to Sri Lanka<\/strong> in April 2025. Even then concerns were raised over national security, economic sovereignty & transparency in the deal-making process. Sri Lanka possesses a wealth of local expertise in shipbuilding & maintenance<\/strong>, making foreign intervention unnecessary. Did Onomichi only promote the more toxic parts of production (fibre-glass use etc) to Sri Lankans? Did they ever reinvest their profits or share expertise in the making of engines, etc? We doubt it. Which is why we snicker when we hear about Japan\u2019s yen largesse along with amplified sermons on petty retail corruption<\/em> in Sri Lanka (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This week saw a slew of largely unnamed Indian merchants & officials including the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) enter Colombo. The CII\u2019s 15 members were led by England\u2019s Imperial Tobacco Co of India (ITC) Chairman & CII Immediate Past President Sanjiv Puri. ITC is linked to the Ceylon Tobacco Co (CTC<\/strong>), which is owned by British American Tobacco (BAT<\/strong>) \u2013 about both whom ee<\/em><\/strong> began a series from 22 February. The CTC also plays a major role in both exacerbating our health budget but also the economy \u2013 it claims to be \u2018the most valuable company in Sri Lanka\u2019. CTC Chairman Suresh Shah was put in charge of \u2018SOERU<\/strong> \u2013 the State-Owned Enterprises Restructuring Unit\u2019 \u2013 to sell off our national assets, and he appears to have disappeared into strategic camouflage\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     BAT-ITC-CTC\u2019s forward role<\/strong> is curious as it has been a commonplace for India\u2019s largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG<\/strong>) company, the English-owned Hindustan Lever<\/strong>, to send down their trainees to head Unilever SL, as their corporate satrapy. Unilever is of course the illegitimate child of the East India Company<\/strong>, just like the Anglo American plc<\/strong>, which controls South Africa<\/strong>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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India (& its south in particular) has indeed deeply sought to play an outsized role in Sri Lanka\u2019s political & economic life \u2013 before, during & after European invasions (which US patronage now wishes to continue forever, despite claims otherwise). The roads & rails inside & in between such slavish institutions as port, fort, prison & plantation were first built by England\u2019s terroristic Pioneer Corps<\/strong> composed of mercenary Indians, Malays & Africans, then by unfree Sinhala labor (road taxes) & then indentured enslaved Indians. More recently, attempting partition, they trained terrorist gangs and suicide squads, recruited mainly from the North, Central Highlands & East, to facilitate the invasion of 70,000 Indian troops in 1987, which saw a united struggle, south & north, with great sacrifice, to drive them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018There had never existed before a \u2018government by which so<\/p>\n\n\n\n

much is written & so little done, as the Government of India\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the East India Company was only a commercial association,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a most detailed report on every item had to be sent from the managers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of their Indian factories, like any trading concern. When the factories<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

grew into an Empire<\/strong>, the commercial items into \u2018ship loads of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

correspondence & documents\u2019, the Leadenhall clerks went on in<\/p>\n\n\n\n

their system, \u2018making the Directors & the Board their dependents.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They succeeded in \u2018transforming the Indian Government into<\/p>\n\n\n\n

one immense writing-machine<\/strong>.\u2019 In one single dispatch<\/p>\n\n\n\n

45,000 pages of collection were sent!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Karl Marx, New York Tribune, 1853<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

India was England\u2019s largest state (slaughtering & dividing & ruling) machinery, dispatched to invade China & Africa, etc. And India, having supposedly \u2018saved\u2019 Sri Lanka by lending us more rupees, is now calling in its debts. They, too, are also giving us sermons about fiscal fidelity & human rights along with England & Japan & Germany etc. So, we found it downright curious to finally hear the Energy Minister \u2018lash out\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     We have heard no responses from these institutions seeking to make us even more energy-dependent with their patented solar & wind technologies. They normally saturate the media with their mundane press releases. Meanwhile, bankers are raking in dollar profits through remittances and the exports of mainly raw materials, while foreclosing on their debtors. What criteria these bankers use to lend money in the first place, to invest in what modern production, we are not told. But the WorldBank-financed \u2018private\u2019 Commercial Bank<\/strong> says it is thrilled to help Toyota export its \u2018pre-loved\u2019 vehicles to Sri Lanka. No wonder the IMF has been demanding vehicle imports!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Despite such high-level malfeasance, the media is having a field day \u2013 outragificiation personified \u2013 calling for \u2018setting politicians to catch politicians\u2019.Yet, such \u2018corruption\u2019 (including the high & low commissioners, really!) is very much part of the merchant & usurer  capitalism that dominates such economies as ours. Yet no media owners, and the multinational corporations & bankers who own these owners, or the accountants who magically cover it all up, have been and will be arrested and paraded \u2013 perpwalked in handcuffs, like they do rural politicians wearing \u2018national\u2019, who tried to make a quick buck but don\u2019t have the E&Y and KPMG accountants<\/strong> to magically make it disappear in Delaware<\/strong>, USA, or the Isle of Man<\/strong>, England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the last conversations SBD de Silva had with his friends & enemies, centred on the nature of Sri Lanka\u2019s famed large irrigation systems<\/strong>, and how the ancient village councils (purana gamsabha) strictly maintained them, becoming the basis of solidarity among people. Interestingly, this was also what occupied Karl Marx in his last years, especially from evidence freshly gathered from Sri Lanka (see ee<\/em><\/strong> 11 July 2020, Cool Marx on SL).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This ee<\/em><\/strong> also continues looking at the largely unsung role played SBD de Silva<\/strong> in unearthing the roots of our discontent, by searching the world over for vital clues. ee<\/em><\/strong> has dutifully dedicated this blog to SBD, throughout these 7 years after his passing in June 2018. This ee<\/em><\/strong> therefore offers Shiran Illanperuma<\/strong>\u2019s examination about why de Silva has been largely ignored by so-called Marxist movements & intellectuals. He suggests it has to do with SBD going against \u2018the leading theoretical trends among Third World radicals of the time\u2019. We should add, these \u2018radicals\u2019, by no means insistently pro-USSR or pro-Communist Party of China, were largely promoted by white academe & such institutions as the UN, NGOs, etc. Illanperuma interestingly explores de Silva\u2019s London School of Economics (LSE) PhD thesis, which SBD himself soon rejected. SB\u2019s book took on the Caribbean\u2019s Nobel Prize-winning Arthur Lewis<\/strong>, who was even knighted by the English monarchy. Illanperuma also notes SBD took a relatively unpopular side in more famous inter-Marxist debates of that era. For SB it was more a question of where we are going, than where we are coming from. By the way, England\u2019s universities like LSE hoard & prevent easy access to these knowledge productions by Sri Lankan & other students, and instead use them against us. Also, Illanperuma refers to an interview given by de Silva. SBD never gave \u2018interviews\u2019, so it\u2019s surprising (then again, not) that the (hijacked) Social Scientists Association  (SSA) of all places, claims he did (ee<\/em><\/strong> has excised the misleading reference in honor of SB\u2019s memory!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George V wished that the Secretary of State for the Colonies<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

would do something to \u2018stop these horrible exhibitions<\/strong>\u2026\u2019<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> continues Chapter 6 of SBD de Silva\u2019s classic, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment<\/em><\/strong>, which examines the great lengths the imperialists went to, to prevent us from finding out about each other across the divides of continents. It tells of the restrictions on Indian crews on vessels trading with England, who supposedly reported back on the scenes in England which divested them \u2018of the respect which they had entertained in India for the European character\u2019. It examines the various devices whereby white supremacy was maintained, noting that many prejudices arose due to \u2018the jealousy of the European women<\/strong>\u2019 who had to endure the double-standards white men upheld to enable liaisons with Black women<\/strong>. SBD also added, how \u2018the \u2018greater threat\u2026 came much later from cinema: In Africa, films viewed by the Africans were censored to exclude scenes suggestive of disreputable behaviour by Europeans.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The racial privileges of the settlers were most helpful<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to the small farmers, artisans & traders\u2026 The extensive<\/p>\n\n\n\n

repression of the indigenous inhabitants in the settler colonies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

was also due to the widespread economic involvement of the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

settlers & to their monopoly of political power\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political rather than economic forces were\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

allowed to determine the structure of production.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SBD detailed how the settlers developed a sense of local identity in such colonies, unlike the non-settler expatriates in Sri Lanka. He examined the role played by white supremacism especially in the settler-colonies, which are like a halfway house, between the genocidal white dominions (US, Canada etc) & non-settler colonies such as Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 The media keeps blaming corruption<\/em> on politicians<\/strong>, with their whitewashed news awash with lectures by Indian & Japanese & German envoys & commentators about our primordial corruption. They should know! A simple perusal of ee<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s mind-numbing News Index<\/em><\/strong> (see below) would expose the sheer blatant repetition (photocopies, copy -&-paste jobs, really) of corporate & state & NGO news releases. The main culprits are the corporates, who seem to spend their time, giving each other awards and claiming them as tax-breaks, as well as the IMF, the WB, the Indian, Japanese, English, German & US embassies. The Germans only recently (2010?) banned the bribing of officials, while the US just OKed such bribery again, even as they are giving \u2018free media\u2019, \u2018investigative\u2019 awards to their favored hack scribes in their favored hack rags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Yet, politicians are just the temporary actors in this game<\/strong>, while there is a permanent, invisible government<\/em><\/strong>, which some conspiratorially call the \u2018Deep State<\/em>\u2019, without ever acknowledging such capitalist subterfuge has always been the realm & power of the state as state. This permanent government or senior bureaucracy is ruled by bankers & their corporations<\/strong>, and this role & power is hidden by the media, the chief proponents of this \u2018deep state\u2019 business. Which is why it was therefore a surprise to hear our Energy Minister supposedly \u2018lash out\u2019 at the WB, ADB etc\u2026 Meanwhile, the IMF & World Bank are parading a slew of their favoured coolios & kneegrows (Singhs & Gopinaths & Woldemichaels) to basically repeat the same mumbling their white handlers mouth. They could all be replaced soon by US Treasury or US Federal Reserve AI drones which travel the globe, alternately bombing babies & weeping about the corruptions of barbarians\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 In honor of the current wrangling for municipal office<\/strong>, with the ruling party \u2018inextricably grounded between a Black Economy & a Debt Economy\u2019 (so says CPSL President DEW Gunasekera on the Communist Party at 82, see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>), ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> continues Gustavus Myers\u2019 1917 History of Tamma<\/strong>ny Hall<\/em> about the New York \u2018charity\u2019 Tammany Society. A secret political machine, it sought to harness \u2018the dangerous strength of the worst classes of the city\u2019, to get \u2018the foreign born, the native rowdies & the usual mass blinded into voting for their candidates\u2019. He described the role played in the mid-19th<\/sup>C by \u2018gamblers, brothel-keepers, immigrant runners [\u2018traffickers\u2019?] & swindlers\u2019 in the \u2018manufacture\u2019 of \u20181,000s of voters\u2019. This episode describes a municipal election \u2013 \u2018the first in which the Democratic voters of Irish nativity or lineage insisted on a full share of the best places on the party\u2019s ticket. Previously they had seldom been allowed any local office above Coroner\u2019. The Irish Catholics appear to have now attained an uneasy acceptance in US politics, and who knows, may even colonize England again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Humanities<\/em><\/strong>, Anyone?<\/strong> Imperialism now seems to feel secure or deluded enough to have its lesser genders & shades & \u2018artists\u2019 front its inner gateways & genocidal machineries. Blaise Metreweli, the next head of England\u2019s MI6, the first female spy chief in that agency\u2019s 116-year history, who from September will take charge of all of England\u2019s grimy, filthy, bloody secrets (they just bombed a Russian oil tanker this week, & blamed it on the Ukrainians), read anthropology<\/strong> at Cambridge\u2019s Pembroke College. But not to worry. Her anthropology may not extend to excavating the angry ghosts surrounding her grandfather Constantine Dobrowolski, \u2018a Ukrainian dubbed \u2018The Butcher\u2019 who became their World War 2 Nazi\u2019s chief informant in Ukraine\u2019s Chernihiv Oblast\u2019. She resembles a blue-eyed dwarf killer doll from Hollywood\u2019s Barbarella<\/em> flick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Meanwhile, the USA\u2019s latest Deputy Chief of Mission in Colombo, Jayne Howell, originally from South Carolina\u2019s Charleston (the major North America receiving port for kidnapped Africans), holds a BA in Archeological Studies<\/strong> from the University of Texas at Austin. Dig<\/em> that: an expert on bones, dipped in petroleum no doubt!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The World Bank\u2019s latest Vice President for the South Asia Region, Dutch national Johannes Zutt has a PhD in Philosophy<\/em><\/strong> from the University of Oxford! We all should know by now what Oxonian Philosophy amounts to\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Meanwhile, since ee<\/em><\/strong> noted on 15 March, \u2018IMF Managing Directors are All White<\/em>\u2019, the USA has started sending us their token brown memsahibs & sahibs. One occasion was the commemoration of the \u201875th<\/sup> anniversary of the IMF\u2019s engagement with Sri Lanka \u2013 a relationship that began with the founding of the Central Bank SL\u2019: we got Gita Gopinath, IMF\u2019s First Deputy Managing Director<\/em> and Krishna Srinivasan, Director of the Asia & Pacific Department (IMF)<\/em> attending the CBSL\u2019s Sri Lanka\u2019s Road to Recovery: Debt & Governance<\/em> conference in Colombo. We had the pleasure of having the World Bank\u2019s Punjabi Sikh President Ajay Banga visit Sri Lanka even earlier. But what does it matter? Their tanned lips all splutter the same white schlock about sticking to the IMF\u2019s shaky guardrails and dutifully swallowing their prescriptions. So it doesn\u2019t matter what color or shade or headwear they don, they might as well be US Treasury robots spouting the same tired algorithms. Their mathematics is the same: After all these centuries of imperial looting, they calculate we<\/em> somehow <\/em>owe them<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Gopinath<\/strong> was sent all this way to warn us, \u2018the shock from Trump\u2019s trade war is worse than Covid-19\u2019. Really?<\/em> Gopinath told the English-Japanese Financial Times<\/em>: \u2018Monetary authorities are steering through the fog without coordination or a shared crisis playbook<\/strong>\u2019. And the head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) concluded at the OECD annual meeting, about international cooperation \u2013 \u2018We\u2019re really where we were before the meeting, which is nowhere<\/em><\/strong>.\u2019 Meanwhile, \u2018Poverty rates (even those unrealistically set by the World Bank) are rising\u2026\u2019  So, all their forecasts somehow have not taken into account their big bosses\u2019 propensities to wage wars, hot & cold \u2013 instead, they refer to \u2018global turbulence<\/em>\u2019 etc. So\u2026, fasten your Toyota & Ford seatbelts, everyone!<\/em>  All that the USA wishes to ensure is that we don\u2019t industrially link with China (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>, Vietnam). Beyond that, they have absolutely no constructive plan for us. Meanwhile, our leaders still keep insisting we must follow the white man over the edge\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com \u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!\u2019 e-Con e-News 29 June \u2013 05 July 2025 * \u2018Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody has lashed out at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Asian Development Bank (ADB), & the World Bank over their public criticism of amendments to the Electricity Act, accusing them of bypassing diplomatic channels & politicising […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}