Aiyo, Aragalaya!

Thursday 3rd November, 2022

Opposition parties are in a perpetual state of confusion; they seem to be labouring under the delusion that united, they will fall, and divided, they can stand. The JVP not only refused to take part in yesterday’s protest march in Colombo but also disparaged the organisers thereof. It has said it will have no truck with opportunists!

The SJB, the SLFP and some trade unions have taken up the cudgels on behalf of the Aragalaya activists who are being detained and grilled under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Their campaign is not devoid of politics; they are trying to mobilise the people in view of the local government elections expected early next year, but without such protests pressure cannot be brought to bear on the government to refrain from suppressing democratic dissent. The JVP has chosen to conduct a separate protest campaign, we are told. The disunity among oppositional forces must have gladdened the hearts of the government leaders, who may not have expected its political rivals to fall out and go for one another’s jugular so soon.

All it takes to ruin a people’s protest is a smidgeon of dirty politics. Politicians with hidden agendas polluted Aragalaya by infiltrating and politicising it to compass their ends. The Galle Face protest movement began as a popular agitation, which was similar, mutatis mutandis, to the wall painting campaign launched by the youth, immediately after the election of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in celebration of what seemed to be a new beginning, which sadly turned out to be yet another false dawn. The occupation of the Galle Face Green reminded us of the Occupy Wall Street protest (2011) in New York.

The Galle Face agitation was a coming together of frustrated citizens from all walks of life, mostly youth, to protest against their hardships and pressure the government to make an urgent course correction on the economic front. That it emerged as a truly apolitical, leaderless protest became evident from the fact that even the JVP and the other Opposition parties warned that such agitations could lead to anarchy. When the Galle Face protest began to run out of steam for want of funds and direction, the JVP, the FSP, etc., moved in and hijacked it. Even the UNP has admitted that it had its activists mingling with the protesters.

The Galle Face protesters were like a group of unskilled workers pulling down a massive wall and exposing themselves to the danger of being buried alive in the process. They succeeded in ousting President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, but the Rajapaksa regime has got a new lease of life under Ranil Wickremesinghe’s presidency and is making up for lost time while the Opposition is exploiting the woes of the victims of the government’s witch-hunt in a bid to gain political mileage. Now, the Oppositional forces are on the defensive and divided!

This is not the first time the JVP has broken ranks with other Opposition parties and trade unions affiliated to them over a crucial national issue. One may recall that the JVP did something similar in July 1980, when the then SLFP-led Opposition and trade unions organised a general strike against the J. R. Jayewardene government, demanding a pay hike. It pulled out at the eleventh hour. The UNP crushed the strike ruthlessly, and sacked about 50,000 strikers. The Opposition accused the JVP of collaborating with the UNP.

The government seems to think Aragalaya is dead and gone, and the path is now clear for it to do as it pleases. True, ultra-radical political groups and various organisations with hidden agendas gave the Galle Face protest movement the kiss of death. The JVP has gained a turbo boost for its approval ratings, and the FSP is in seventh heaven. The SLPP has launched a reorganisation campaign, and the UNP is busy trying to shore up its image and support base, having secured the presidency. Some of the self-appointed leaders of Aragalaya have laughed all the way to the bank. But Aragalaya is far from dead. All the problems that drove the people to stage street protests remain unsolved. The economy is contracting; the cost of living is soaring; taxes and tariffs are increasing exponentially; hospitals are experiencing drug shortages; people are skipping meals, malnutrition is on the rise among children; corrupt deals continue to be struck; stress on the banking system is worsening; the abuse of power continues unabated, and the government is stepping up the suppression of dissent. There is a massive build-up of public anger in the polity. Unless the government holds the local government polls thereby providing the people with an opportunity to canalise their anger in a democratic manner, there will be another uprising.

Self-serving politicians, in power as well as in opposition, are creating conditions for a truly leaderless uprising, which will be fuelled by anti-politics. Let them be warned that none of them will be safe in such an eventuality. Given the huge increases in food prices and other essentials and the shortages thereof, the day may not be far off when we witness, in Colombo, something similar to the Women’s March on Versailles (1789) against food scarcities and the suppression of their rights, in Paris.