{"id":91462,"date":"2019-07-16T16:05:58","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T23:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=91462"},"modified":"2019-07-16T16:05:58","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T23:05:58","slug":"betraying-our-visionary-leader-ds-senanayake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/07\/16\/betraying-our-visionary-leader-ds-senanayake\/","title":{"rendered":"Betraying our Visionary leader DS Senanayake."},"content":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne Former Government Agent<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The vast colonization schemes of the Dry Zone, the peasantry, in\nthousands  that enjoyed the land,  earning bountiful crops were all due to the\ngreat achievement of our Leader, DS Senanayake, all achieved during his days as\nthe Minister for Agriculture and Lands. It was his dream to uplift the life of\nthe rural masses and for that purpose  he\ninitiated a policy of granting land to the landless poor, making them partners\nin production and national development. His avowed aim was “not only to\nsee that they are free from hunger an starvation but to see that they are\nestablished on land and  become self\nreliant and selfdependant\u201d(Hansard: 26\/2\/1932:State Council of Ceylon)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His plan was not the haphazard alienation of Crown land.  He went to the extent of appointing a Select\nCommittee of the State Council, to make any recommendations which they\nconsider expedient and practical  for the\nestablishment of a Scheme whereby land may be settled  on villagers and small holders and Crown land\nalienation or leased to villagers or small holders can be prevented  from passing into the hands of persons  other than villagers or small\nholders\u201d(Hansard: 14\/03\/1933:Land Development Ordinance). <\/em> A Committee was duly appointed . The Committee\nhad sittings for two years  and made\nsubmissions to the Council which were accepted. Referring to the Land\nDevelopment ordinance provisions  he said\nthat in this Ordinance we have made provision for  the protection of holdings  that is we have considered it necessary..\nthat when   land is alienated to a class\nof people to see that the land is possessed and it is very necessary that  protection should be continued for all time.\nIt was necessary to see  that not only in\nthe first instance  the person who\ngot  the land  belonged to the class  to which we want the lands to go , but that\nthe successors too belonged to that class. We felt that if we gave out right\ntransfers  it will not be possible to\nprotect such lands.\u201d(Hansard: 14\/3\/1933\u201d State Council of Ceylon)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that it was necessary to avoid what happened when freehold\nland was given out under British rule:\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what happened to the jungle land up country  under the British Government  with its unfortunate laws and practices.\nToday  owing to the freehold given by the\nGovernment \u2026 all that land has  passed\nout of the possession of the people of this country.\u201d(Statement in the State Council\nof Ceylon:(19\/10\/1933: Hansard)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He not only provided them with land, but also created the\ndevelopment infrastructure to enable the peasants to sell their produce by\ncreating the Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing, which\nimplemented  the Vegetable and Fruit\nMarketing Scheme and the Guaranteed Price Scheme which offered  a premium price for paddy and other cereals\nin short supply. The aim was to make Sri Lanka self sufficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is sad that our present leaders have due to the influence of\nthe IMF and other foreign advisors have abolished the Department for\nDevelopment of Agricultural Marketing, thus depriving the peasant farmers the\nchance to obtain a premium price for the vegetables produced. The Guaranteed\nPrice Scheme run first by the Marketing Department was later enlarged to the\nPaddy Marketing Board. The Government today purchases paddy from anyone- mainly\ntraders, while in its heyday till 1977 purchases were made only from genuine\nproducers. Today, the premium price offered go to the traders and not to the\ngenuine producers.  The entire purpose of\noffering a premium price is lost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today we are seeing in progress the death knell of the\ncolonization schemes and the bold peasantry that was built up by our leader DS\nSenanayake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Prime Minister has come up with a programme to give\nfreehold  on State lands that will enable\nthe holders of the land to sell as they wish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an area that was carefully looked into by Leader DS\nSenanayake. as quoted above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope that the ideas of our founding father DS Senanayake will be\nkindly considered by our current leaders. \nHis intention was to build up a bold prosperous peasantry and having\nworked in the agriculture sector from 1955 to 1973 I can assure anyone that a\nbold peasantry was born, mainly on State colonization schemes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us not destroy what we have achieved. Let not  the dreams of our founding father DS\nSenanayake, which brought about prosperity to the peasantry and to our country\nbe sacrificed. This involves  the vast\nextents in the colonization schemes as well as allotments alienated to the\nlandless in every district.. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem of today is that with the abolition of the Marketing\nDepartment producers cannot get a good price for their produce. In the paddy\nproducing areas it is the traders who collect paddy that hand over to the State\nunder the Paddy Purchasing Scheme. Farmers have to face heavy costs for tractor\nploughing and for harvesting machinery. Due to these constraints paddy\nproducers hardly make a profit. Further there are very few avenues open for\nemployment to the young and if freeholds are granted the holders will opt to\nsell their allotments. Then they will move to the shanties in the cities and\nbecome daily wage employees. There will inevitably be large scale displacement\nof people and ultimately a tremendous increase in poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead  our leaders should\nconsider the copious reasons why our founding father DS did not give freeholds\non crown land. Our leaders will gain great credit if they can re establish the\nMarketing Department(MD) with its vegetable and fruit purchasing scheme and its\nCannery. This will be a boon to the producers as well as the city dwellers\nbecause the MD had small retail shops in the cities where the vegetables were\nsold at rock bottom prices and thus inflation was stopped effectively. The MD\nCannery even built up a trade exporting pineapple.The author was in charge of\nthe Vegetable & Fruit Marketing Scheme for a full year based at the Tripoli\nMarket.  In addition using the existing\nstaff in the Land & Agricultural Deparments and the katcheris a production\naimed programme can easily be implemented to produce and make what is being\nimported. This is something that can easily be done and this will bring great\ncredit to the Government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is in the interests of the Developed Countries specially the\nUSA to destroy our agriculture so that we will be caught in the bread trap and have\nto buy wheat from them. The land issue- giving freehold so that ultimately\ninternational multinationals may get hold of our productive land is another\nsimilar  trap. .Let our leaders not fall\ninto this trap. This trap will create immense poverty in Sri Lanka. Our country\nis caught in a debt trap created by the IMF \nwhich advised us to import freely, spend foreign exchange freely and\nfill the gap with loaned money. My publication: How the IMF Sabotahged Third\nWorld Development  details what\nhappened. We were unknowingly led to become indebted.  If we give out freeholds on State alienated\nland we will be inevitably caught in a poverty trap. .  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is reported that the freehold system has had the vision of\nforeign specialists. I have quoted ideas from our founding father DS\nSenanayake, the personage who created the United National Party. Reading\nthrough the speeches in the Hansard I find that he had done painstaking work to\ncare for the poor. If further details are required the Government can call on\nthe services of Government Agents who earlier worked as District Land Officers\nand they hold a wealth of expertise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let our leaders kindly think again \nbefore it is too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne
Former Government Agent
Ph.D. Michigan State University<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13\/07\/2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author of:How\nthe IMF Ruined Sri Lanka(Godagfes:2006) \n& How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development (2017:\nGodages\/Kindle)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne Former Government Agent The vast colonization schemes of the Dry Zone, the peasantry, in thousands  that enjoyed the land,  earning bountiful crops were all due to the great achievement of our Leader, DS Senanayake, all achieved during his days as the Minister for Agriculture and Lands. It was his dream to uplift the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91462","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=91462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}