Editorial 1 : Maldives model in Lanka
Context: Why political uncertainty in Sri Lanka may not mean it draws away from India
2024: Year of Setbacks
- 2024 has witnessed several setbacks to India’s Neighbourhood First Policy with the recent election results in Sri Lanka may be the latest among them.
- Pakistan has reverted to escalating cross-border terrorism against India.
- K P Sharma Oli, who had presided over an unprecedented worsening of bilateral relations is Prime Minister of Nepal once again.
- Shiekh Hasina fled from Bangladesh after student movement morphed into a much wider anti-government revolt against her.
- More worrying is the resurfacing of radical Islamic elements of the Jamaat and a revival of Pakistani influence in the country.
- There is a serious security situation looming large in India’s sensitive Northeast, where a dangerous inter-ethnic conflict in Manipur, a violent civil war in Myanmar and now an unstable and hostile situation in Bangladesh, could intertwine and make India’s eastern flank both unstable and volatile.
- A hostile regime in the Maldives is testing India’s diplomatic mettle. There is a real possibility that Sri Lanka’s recent presidential elections could become another inflexion point.
Situation in Sri Lanka
- Anura Kumara Dissanayake has been elected President at the head of the National People’s Party (NPP), of which the chief constituent is his left-wing radical Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).
- The JVP has reinvented itself politically, shedding its historical baggage as a violent left-wing and ultra-nationalist movement directed against India. It was involved in two bloody insurrections, one in 1971 and the other in 1987.
- There is likely to be greater state intervention in the economy and a review of several major private sector projects. Dissanayake has threatened to cancel the solar power project being undertaken by India’s Adani group in northern Sri Lanka.
- India cannot afford prolonged political turmoil and economic disruption in its southern periphery.
The Maldives Experience
- In the case of the Maldives, there was a sober and mature handling of an overtly hostile regime by India.
- India allowed the reality of a dense economic interdependence to bring about a shift in attitudes in Male.
- In the case of India and Sri Lanka, too, there is a strong economic interdependence.
India-Sri Lanka Economic Ties
- The economic viability of Colombo port depends upon transhipment traffic from India.
- India extended significant support to Sri Lanka during the height of its economic crisis in 2020.
- This included a currency swap, supplies of fuel, rice and medicines and a large financial package.
- These are estimated to be around $4 billion.
- Economic interdependence may serve to smoothen the sharp edges caused by politics.
Way ahead for Dissanayake
- It was apparent several months before the elections that Dissanayake and his NPP may win the elections. He was invited as a guest of the Indian government in February 2024 and held talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. This was a good move.
- Dissanayake has recognised the importance of India for Sri Lanka’s security and economic development.
- He has not given any indication of prioritising relations with China over India.
Way Forward for India
- There is an urgent necessity to draw up a comprehensive neighbourhood strategy.
- This should identify what are the assets and what are the liabilities in engaging with each of the neighbours but also locate these bilateral relations in a larger pursuit of regional economic integration.
- This would seek to leverage the role that India could play as the engine of growth for all its neighbours.
- Leading the Global South must begin with our own subcontinental neighbours.
Editorial 2 : The Disconnected Citizen
Context: Himachal Pradesh mosque flare-up: When government is disconnected from citizens
Absence of Governance
- The recent flare-up in popular anger against the illegal construction of a mosque in Sanjauli (Himachal Pradesh) was not a Hindu-Muslim issue but was a manifestation of the anger against the absence of governance.
- In the absence of governance, communities which are angry about the hundreds of pinpricks that mark their daily lives, start fighting with each other in the name of religion, caste, etc.
- The issue here is not so much the political or communal dissonances that characterise India. Nor is it about municipal administration being partial or inefficient. It is about the governance of a locality being completely disconnected from the concerns of those who live there.
- In India a person is considered as ‘labharthi’ and not citizen, who has to be given some labh (privilege) by superior beings who run the government from a remote location.
Subsidiarity and Good Governance
- Good governance is based on the principle of subsidiarity i.e. decisions should be made at the level closest to the people.
- This means that if roads are not being cleaned, street lights don’t work, illegal civil works keep coming up in a locality, and shops and buildings are used for purposes that upset the civic balance, it is the locality’s people who are best placed to keep an eye and escalate the matter to authorities empowered to take corrective actions.
- This subsidiarity does not exist in India.
Local Self-Government
- Civic bodies have existed in India since the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments made local self-government bodies mandatory in the states.
- These amendments failed to allocate any subjects to local self-government.
- State governments refuse to devolve power to local bodies.
- No wonder the actual concerns of the people in their localities remain routinely unaddressed.
- The comprehensive monopoly of action that the government exercises, prohibits the people of a locality from taking any action to resolve their local issues.
- Simple matters of public law and order, providing clean drinking water, collecting property tax, building and maintaining roads, religious places and/or community health and schools are all legitimate concerns of the local body.
- These get decided upon and controlled by remotely located administrators. Local bodies have neither the money nor the administrative resources to adequately manage any of them.
State Governments in Local Matters
- State governments routinely control what should be a local matter.
- Be it policemen, doctors, teachers or municipal clerks, local bodies have no powers.
- This makes the administration of a locality entirely disconnected from the concerns of the local population.
Conclusion: In India, a system has been created in which citizens have been taken out of governance. In the absence of formal powers to govern, citizens create conditions of chaos, increase mutual acrimony, and find new ways of hurting each other.