Features
In Sri Lanka opposition parties remain as fragmented as ever
By Uditha Devapriya and Rumeth Jayasinghe
Like most South Asian countries, Sri Lanka will face elections this year. Both the government and the Opposition are busy preparing themselves for polls.Presidential elections are expected to take place in September or October 2024, though timelines have not been announced yet. Some analysts believe general elections will follow a presidential election, while others believe they will precede it.
The island nation, which faced its worst economic crisis in 2022, has managed to bring about some stability – though politically and economically, this stability remains fragile, if deceptive, certainly superficial.
The government, headed by Ranil Wickremesinghe, has seemingly managed to get things back in order. The country has imposed on itself several painful austerity measures, with assistance from the IMF, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank, in addition to support from other countries, including India.
Since 2022, Sri Lanka’s economy has seemingly fared well. The country managed to secure an agreement with the IMF on an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme in 2023. While the economy grew by 1.6 percent in the third quarter of 2023, inflation, which stood at 56 percent in December 2022, came down to 4.2 percent a year later.
However, while the situation has improved on some fronts, political uncertainty looms large over the island, as policy decisions have fuelled polarisation nearly everywhere. They have also ruptured conventional political divisions and patterns.
So far, Sri Lanka has made progress on restructuring bilateral debt of around USD 11 billion. It expects to come into an agreement with private creditors and bondholders, though the latter remain cautious if not wary.
One of Sri Lanka’s main pillars, tourism, has achieved much growth. Tourist arrivals surged from 194,495 in 2021 to 1,487,303 in 2023, partly due to an ambitious tourism promotional campaign which involved a prominent international influencer.
Once starved of tourists, the country is now witnessing an explosion in hotel bookings, well beyond existing capacity. Indeed, in a strange twist, the Department of Immigration and Emigration recently issued a notification requesting Russian and Ukrainian tourists to leave the island within 14 days, due to nationals of these countries setting up businesses at the expense of locals. A “White Only” party in the south organised in a Russian cafe had aggravated the situation. This is a far cry from 2021 and 2022, when the government was virtually begging for tourists.
However, while there have been improvements in these sectors, they are seen as benefiting a certain privileged class. The Opposition and sections of the public have opposed the government’s economic reforms, including the restructuring of the country’s State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), which is expected to be completed shortly.
Tax reforms have also garnered criticism. Recent hikes in income and Value Added Taxes have imposed a huge burden on the country’s lower and middle-classes, including professionals and small and medium business owners.
Not surprisingly, these have polarised politics in Sri Lanka. They have been fuelled by the regime’s lurch towards authoritarianism. The recent Online Safety Act, for instance, has sparked criticism from civil society. Scandals, particularly one involving a former Health Minister, who has since been remanded, have taken centre stage.
All these have made the government more vulnerable. Yet far from bolstering unity within the Opposition, the Opposition remains as fragmented as ever.
The Main Opposition: Samagi Jana Balawegaya
The country’s main Opposition Samagi Jana Balavegaya, performed modestly at general elections in 2020, gaining 23.92 percent of the vote. Its leader, Sajith Premadasa, once an ally of Ranil Wickremesinghe, has become a fierce critic of his government.
Capitalising on widespread discontent, his party has vowed to reverse many of the policies being enforced by the government. Yet the SJB faces a tricky situation. On the one hand, as the main Opposition, it has organised numerous protests against the regime’s austerity measures and tax hikes. On the other hand, many of its MPs have aligned themselves with the economic ideology underpinning those reforms.
A recently unveiled economic policy document states that the party supports engagement with the IMF. This has led leftwing MPs to accuse the SJB of being no different to the government. The SJB, in turn, has accused these MPs of being “clueless” with regard to economic reforms, fuelling further divisions within the Opposition.
Complicating matters further, the party has invited to its fold several individuals who were associated with the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government. These include ex-military officials. The party itself is chaired by a former Army Commander, Sarath Fonseka. The inclusion of ex-SLPP stalwarts has driven a wedge between him and Sajith Premadasa, to a point where he is now touting himself as a presidential candidate in his own right.
Swinging to the Left: National People’s Power (NPP)
Widely seen as the most popular party in Sri Lanka, the National People’s Power is tipped to be a frontrunner at upcoming elections.
More than any other political outfit, it is the NPP that has tapped into public discontent with the government. It has based its campaign on promises of eradicating corruption. This, of course, was one of the themes of the protests that drove Gotabaya Rajapaksa out of power. It continues to resonate with the country’s youth, the peasantry, and the working classes, vast swathes of whom have swung to the Left.
Ideologically, the party is seen as favouring public ownership, State-led industrialisation, and nationalisation. It is fiercely opposed to ongoing reforms. Its stance on debt restructuring, though, remains less than clear. While it is opposed to the austerity that restructuring has imposed on the middle and lower classes, it has stated that upon coming to power it will renegotiate, not abandon, the IMF agreement. The IMF itself met with its MPs last January. Details of the meeting, however, have not been released.
The NPP is the parliamentary wing of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, which was formed in the 1960s as an anti-establishment outfit, in opposition even to the mainstream Left. At the height of the country’s ethnic conflict in the 1980s, it was banned by the then government. This pushed it out of the democratic mainstream, leading to a protracted insurrection which was motivated, and driven, by Indian intervention in the country.
Since entering democratic politics in the 1990s, the JVP has softened its stances, though on several issues – especially the India-imposed 13th Amendment – it remains of the same opinion as before. It frequently denounces mainstream political parties, though it too was part of coalition politics. Yet it is seen by the country’s youth and lower middle-classes as being clean and free of corruption, a cut above the rest.
In that sense, the Indian government’s decision to invite the NPP to Delhi, where the party delegation met External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, affirms their growing importance not just at home, but also abroad.
Minority Politics: ITAK
The success of these parties will depend a lot on the alliances it forges with other parties. Though nationalism, particularly Sinhala Buddhist nationalism, has played a major part in elections in Sri Lanka, almost all parties have dallied with minority outfits. In 2019, for instance, the SLPP openly courted Muslim votes, even in the backdrop of the Easter attacks, while the UNP secured support from the country’s main Tamil party.
Since the 2020 general election, however, there has been a seismic shift in minority politics. This has been especially evident in Tamil politics. The biggest Tamil political party, the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), recently witnessed a change in its leadership, from a figure seen as a moderate to a more militant hardliner.
This prefigures a pivotal shift in the tactics of Tamil parties. Earlier, minority parties pursued negotiations with major parties with the objective of obtaining concessions on issues like devolution of power and, in the country’s Northern Province, the return of lands owned by the military to their previous owners.
The situation has changed dramatically today. At the last general election, ITAK retained its dominant position in the Northern Province. Yet two rival parties – the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF), formed in 2010, and the Tamil People’s National Alliance (TPNA), formed in 2020 – secured enough seats to enter parliament. Both have gone beyond the ITAK’s politics of compromise, advocating for autonomy for Tamils.
S. Sridharan, the ITAK’s new leader, is a fitting symbol of these shifts. Described by the press as a “hardline apologist of the LTTE” – the separatist outfit that waged a war against the Sri Lankan government for 30 years – Sridharan has insisted on a new and more viable solution to the problems of his community.
One of the first things he did as party leader was to visit a cemetery for LTTE cadres in Jaffna. Since then, he has expressed reservations about the 13th Amendment and highlighted the need to go beyond devolution of power. Like his counterparts in other Tamil parties, he has pushed for a federal State. Crucially, he has stated he will do all he can to mobilise Tamil nationalist forces “as they were before 2009”, that is, before the LTTE’s military defeat at the hands of the Sri Lankan government.
So far, neither the government nor the Opposition – be it SJB or NPP – has responded to Sridharan’s calls. Yet alliances with minority parties have become a sine qua non of Sri Lankan politics. It is hence likely that government and Opposition will vie for minority votes through these parties closer to the election.
However, at a time when Sinhala dominated parties from both sides are mobilising nationalist sentiments against one another, it remains to be seen how far they will go to court minorities. While the President himself has made overtures to ITAK, convening a meeting, of Buddhist monks and members of the Tamil diaspora, Sridharan’s victory signals a rupture in minority politics in the island. In the long term, that will dampen prospects of a rapprochement between Tamil parties and the government.
The situation is the same with the Opposition. Both the SJB and NPP are courting disaffected voters from the SLPP camp. Some of these groups, such as ex-army officials, disagree heavily with the politics and ideologies of parties like the ITAK.
The Opposition faces a dilemma here. On the one hand, these groups can help erode the SLPP’s hold over nationalist votes. On the other hand, they can also erode the Opposition’s prospects within minority communities. While it is unlikely that minority parties will fully give up cohabiting with mainstream outfits, the SJB’s and NPP’s reaching out to ex-military types may cost both parties support from outfits like ITAK.
The Future: A (Very) Big Question Mark
Described as Asia’s oldest democracy, Sri Lanka faces a rather tricky crossroads this year. With rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific and the prospect of a forever war in the Middle-East, the island’s domestic politics will shape its foreign policy.
Of course, it is economics, not foreign policy, that has taken centre-stage for now. The big question on everyone’s lips is when Sri Lanka will begin to recover.
Such questions, however, cannot be answered or resolved easily.
Different parties have proposed and presented different solutions to Sri Lanka’s economic crisis. At the centre of it all is one issue. For how long can the country continue inflicting austerity on itself, and for how long can the government survive?
Colombo-based economists argue that IMF reforms should be continued and amplified. Yet the backlash those reforms have generated will be picked up by Opposition parties – even those which are fundamentally in agreement with them.
Thus, while the leader of the SJB has publicly stated that he will renegotiate Sri Lanka’s agreement with the IMF if he comes into power, party MPs have advocated for careful engagement with the IMF. Such contradictions are natural in a country where parties face different electorates and try to pander to all of them.
As for the government, it seems content in churning out narratives of stability. This is a line few people seem to be buying. While the situation has changed from what it was in 2022 – there are no miles-long queues for fuel and gas – that offers little consolation in light of the price and tax hikes which most people have had to put up with.
The situation has become so divisive, in fact, that a video of US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu describing Sri Lanka as a comeback story provoked outrage across social media, with several Sri Lankans questioning how he could remain indifferent to, and ignorant of, ground realities.
Against such a backdrop, it is difficult to say who will win elections and what the winner will do with the country. Certainly, the NPP has gained ground, while the SJB’s confused response to economic reforms has cost it popular support. Yet the NPP remains derided by mainstream parties, including the Opposition.
Critically, none of the three major parties battling for votes – SLPP, SJB, and NPP – has fully reached out to minority parties, in particular to Tamil parties.
The SLPP and SJB have, to be sure, forged alliances with certain groups. This is far from the case with the NPP. The NPP has so far been content in promoting its corruption-free record everywhere. The question is how effective such messaging will be with voters in the island’s North and East who have traditionally supported communal parties.
To be sure, it must be admitted that disaffection with the mainstream has grown so much that people are shifting to the Left, particularly to the NPP. To a considerable extent, this disaffection has cut across ethnic and religious divisions.
Whether that will translate into votes, of course, remains to be seen. But it has certainly boosted the NPP’s prospects. This has made it a clear frontrunner, in an election that is sure to be dominated by much uncertainty, chaos, and speculation.
Uditha Devapriya is a writer, researcher, and analyst based in Sri Lanka who contributes to a number of publications on topics such as history, art and culture, politics, and foreign policy. He can be reached at .
Rumeth Jayasinghe is an undergraduate at the University of Peradeniya who is pursuing economics. He can be reached at .
A version of this article was published in The Diplomat.
“We are rather respectable in Colombo. We go to bed fairly early, and we remain there till morning. “
According to Sri Lanka’s diplomatic folklore, the late S.W. R. D. Bandaranaike uttered these words while explaining the reasons for Sri Lanka’s abstention on the UN resolution condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Apparently, SWRD’s foreign ministry officials were asleep at home when the diplomatic cable seeking instructions was received from New York. In those days, there were no cell phones, Internet, or even fax or telex machines. The diplomatic cables were sent through post offices. Decoding them was a slow and time-consuming process. Thus, the government could not provide appropriate instructions to our mission in New York in time, and the Sri Lankan delegation abstained on that sensitive UN vote.
Sri Lanka’s Absence from Section 301 Consultations
But then, how does one explain Sri Lanka’s absence from the crucial bilateral consultation held in Washington by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) during March-April on “Forced Labour” under the Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974? Didn’t our foreign and trade ministries send appropriate instructions to Washington in time? Even if the instructions from the foreign ministry were transmitted to our embassy in Washington by pigeon carriers, there was enough time for Sri Lanka to participate in those meetings.
In March, the USTR initiated these 301 investigations on 60 trading partners, and invited all of them for confidential consultations. Out of the 60, 46 participated in these consultations. Sri Lanka was not one of them. Other countries that didn’t participate in these consultations included China, Russia, and Venezuela! In addition to that, the Section 301 Committee conducted a public hearing with interested parties on April 28 and 29. Washington-based diplomats, representatives from few trade ministries as well as representatives from many foreign trade associations and chambers participated in these hearings. Sri Lanka was once again conspicuously absent.
As a result, when the USTR published the proposed forced labour tariffs on June 2nd, Sri Lanka ended up with a 12.5% duty. Pakistani and Indonesian diplomats participated in these consultations and took appropriate follow-up measures, and managed to enter the 10% duty category. As even a threat of a modest tariff hike could disrupt supply chains and reduce competitiveness, particularly in an industry such as garments, I discussed this issue on 15 June and underscored the importance of Sri Lanka’s participation at the next hearing, which was scheduled to be held from July 7th .
Awakening from Diplomatic Slumber and AKD’s Gazette
Fortunately, Sri Lanka finally awoke from weeks of diplomatic slumber, and Ambassador Mahinda Samarasinghe participated in the public hearing on 9 July, and promised, “…. · We have agreed to the text in our negotiations with the USTR on forced labour, …. The gazette as we speak is being printed and I’m getting the gazette tomorrow morning, and the gazette will be shared with USTR as I get it“.
As promised, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake issued a gazette on 10 July banning the imports of goods produced by forced labour. These new regulations are very similar to what Pakistan and Indonesia enacted in April, after their consultations with USTR in March. Why couldn’t we do it in April? Why did we wait till the very last minute?
Challenges ahead
“War is too important to be left to generals alone,” is a famous saying attributed to former French Premier Georges Clemenceau. Similarly, monitoring our main markets is too important to be left to diplomats alone. The United States is the largest single-country market for Sri Lanka. Therefore, Sri Lankan trade chambers and associations should become more proactive in these markets and participate in these events. For example, the chairman of the Pakistani apparel exporters association participated in the April hearings. Similarly, representatives from the Indian Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Confederation of Indian Industry, and Reliance Industries also participated in July hearings. At an event where each speaker is given only five minutes (strictly enforced), having a number of speakers from a country is an advantage. The presence of industry representatives in these kinds of events also help them understand the market dynamics and the future challenges. This is important, particularly because there will be many more challenges with Trump’s tariffs.
With the gazette issued on 10 July, Sri Lanka has imposed a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labour. Now, the challenge will be to effectively enforce the prohibition. And what are the goods produced with forced labour? The USTR list only focuses on aluminum, cotton, electronics, lithium-ion batteries, rice, and tobacco. However, according to the U.S. Department of Labour, the list is much longer. Hence, this list may change continuously during the next two years and tariffs may fluctuate once again.
So, this is definitely not the time to slumber.
(The writer, a retired public servant, can be reached at senadhiragomi@gmail.com)
by Gomi Senadhira ✍️
After the overwhelming grotesquerie of J K Rowling’s latest Cormoran Strike novel (written, I should have noted, as the others were, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith), I thought I should return to the world of fun, and also a much shorter description since this thriller moves quickly without the layers of detail that Rowling engages in.
I then move to the second comic thriller by Caryl Brahms and S J Simon. This, their second story to feature Vladimir Stroganoff and Adam Quill, was Casino for Sale, as lunatic a romp as the first, though without the emphasis on the ballet that characterized A Bullet in the Ballet.
This one begins with the impresario Stroganoff buying a casino cheap from Baron Sam de Rabinovich, only to find that it was a rundown place, not the grand casino of La Bazouche, a resort on the Frenc+h Riviera, as he had initially thought. The grand one belonged to Lord Buttonhooke, and Stroganoff could not compete, until he thought of bringing the Ballet Stroganoff to the casino – which of course leads to Buttonhooke deciding to have ballet performances in his Casino too.
Stroganoff invites Quill to visit him, which Quill decides to do since he has left Scotland Yard, having come into a legacy. No one believes this, and he has to face questions as to what he did to have been sacked, with sympathy for having been found out.
Caryl and Simon
The day he arrives in La Bazouche there is a murder, of a vitriolic critic called Citrolo, in Stroganoff’s office. He had been going to write a damning review of the opening night of the ballet and Stroganoff, when he realizes Citrolo cannot be swayed, drugs him and dictates the review himself to the papers. He leaves Citrolo sleeping and finds him shot the next morning, whereupon he decides to muddy the waters and leave a suicide note and lots of other murder weapons. So much overkill, as it were, of course ensures that he is arrested.
But the excitable French detective who makes the arrest follows up his suggestion that Buttonhooke was also involved, and so the two casino owners find themselves in cells next door to each other, with the detective Gustave quite happy to provide creature comforts for a fee.
Quill decides he must investigate, and finds Gustave most cooperative, since he has a laid back attitude to work. So it is Quill that finds a notebook which makes it clear Citrolo is an accomplished blackmailer, and that there are lots of possible murderers, including Stroganoff’s croupier, who was crooked, Rabinovich, who was now working for Buttonhooke, a confidence trickster called Kurt Kukumber, whose prospectus for a dud gold mine was found in the office and Prince Alexis Artishok who was engaged in a deal to buy diamonds from the ballerina Dyra Dyrakova.
Stroganoff had been trying to get Dyrakova to dance for him, but having done so previously she had refused. But then to Stroganoff’s chagrin she agreed to dance for Buttonhooke. The clearly crooked Artishok had told Buttonhooke’s mistress Sadie Souse, who was not very bright, that Dyrakova possessed diamonds she was willing to sell cheap, and Sadie was determined to have them.
Quill meanwhile finds out that there was a secret passage to Stroganoff’s office, the obvious solution to what had begun as a locked room mystery, and that this was known by almost everyone apart from Stroganoff himself. And then Rabinovich is murdered, just after Gustave had released his two original suspects, leading him to blame Quill for having insisted on that and thus allowing them to kill again.
Soon afterwards Dyrakova arrives, and the town is full of posters announcing that she will appear in the casinos, elaborate posters for either one, since Stroganoff is determined that she will dance for him, and if she does not come willingly, he has devised a scheme to make her do so unwillingly. So, though Buttonhooke has her taken off to his yacht immediately she arrives at the station, Quill along with Arenskaya gets her into a launch and to Stroganoff’s casino, where she performs to tumultuous applause, not knowing for whom she is dancing.
When Quill asked her about the diamonds, she said she had sold them long ago, and that gave Quill the solution to the mystery. Rabinovich had known about this, and Artishok had killed him to prevent Sadie learning it from him, he had killed Citrolo who had recognized him for an accomplished card sharper, not a Russian prince at all. But before he is arrested, he gets away in a boat, and the police launch that pursues him is on the point of catching him up when it runs out of petrol.
Again, lots of excitement, and entertaining references – Gustave grows marrows – and if not quite as brilliant as its predecessor, Casino was certainly a delightful read.
It was a few years back that a former President of Sri Lanka took it on himself to pronounce SAARC ‘dead’. Since then there have been other sections of Sri Lankan opinion that have joined the critics of SAARC and taken the solemn stance that SAARC has indeed died what may be called a natural death.
Their fatalism is understandable. SAARC has failed to meet at heads of government or state level for the past several years to take the SAARC process notably forward. Regional cooperation has more or less been only an appealing idea. No substantive concrete projects have taken off to make the idea a hard reality. ‘Inner paralysis’ seems to be SAARC’s lot. Hence the fatalism in these circles.
However, being one of the worst cash-strapped regions of the world and a teemingly populated one with people virtually left to their devices, what choices do the ‘SAARC Eight’ have other than to try their best to band together and continue with their cooperation efforts, however small they may be?
There is no escaping the mounting debt trap for many of these countries and bankrupt Sri Lanka is a glaring example, but ‘throwing in the towel’ and abandoning themselves entirely to the diktats of the strongest economies and their agencies will prove a ‘living death’ for many countries in the SAARC fold.
The gains may be meagre but giving-up on SAARC cooperation in full would prove self-defeating for the organization and South Asia. Right now, the collective intention ought to be to salvage what the region could from the tenuous cooperative efforts. Moreover, such initiatives could go some distance to generate a degree of goodwill among the Eight and help in sustaining a dialogue process.
Given this backdrop it proved ‘a stich in time’ for the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS), Colombo, to recently host the SAARC Secretary General Ambassador Md. Golam Sarwar to a round table discussion on the unifying potential of SAARC and its future possibilities, besides other related issue areas.
Held on June 24th and moderated by RCSS Executive Director and former ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha, the forum brought together a vibrant, wide ranging audience comprising academicians, diplomats, senior public servants, civil society activists and many others. Following the presentation by Ambassador Golam Sarwar titled, ‘Reigniting SAARC: Achievements, Challenges and the Way Ahead’, a lively Q&A followed.
The above forum could be described as an act of lighting the proverbial ‘candle’ rather than ‘cursing the darkness.’ It surely is a ‘darkness’ that could be seen as daunting considering that the region’s pivotal powers, India and Pakistan, are failing to act in a spirit of accord but are engaged in bitter finger-pointing on a number of questions of vital importance to SAARC.
On the other hand, what is the rest of the region doing to bring the above sides together? It is disappointing that to date the rest of SAARC has failed to launch a major diplomatic drive to bring peace between the feuding regional heavyweights. It needs to act without delay and establish its earnestness and this effort would need to prove SAARC’s staying power in the unfolding months and even years.
In assessing SAARC’s seeming failure local opinion in particular has failed to factor in what could be described as weak leadership. Since Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh, the founding father of SAARC, the region has failed to produce a visionary leader who could advance the SAARC cause with charisma and drive.
Among other reasons, weak leadership accounts considerably for the faltering and stuttering status, as it were, of SAARC. Badly needed are leaders who could go the extra mile, think less of narrow national interests and work diligently towards the collective well being of the region but SAARC’s millions of ordinary people have been made to wait in vain for leaders of such stature. Instead, they have been burdened with politicians who seem to be relishing the apparently moribund state of SAARC.
Looking back, it could be said that it was the dynamic leadership factor that led to the launching of the Non-Aligned Movement and for its sustenance for a few decades. True, it could be seen in some quarters that NAM is no more, but as in the case of SAARC, the former too has been unfortunate to be burdened over the years with politicians who lack the vision and drive to unflaggingly advance the fortunes of the South. NAM and SAARC lack the dynamism and vision of leaders of the stature of Jawaharlal Nehru, for example, to give them the required guidance and intellectual depth.
The reasons are complex for there not being among us currently political leaders with the vision and the steadfast commitment to advance the legitimate interests of the South. However, it could be stated with conviction that the majority of Southern leaders have too easily caved in to the demands of the global North and its financial agencies.
These leaders have failed to see, for instance, that the largely market economy oriented Northern governments would not view with favour a centrist economic model that attaches priority to the interests of the dis-empowered publics of the South. This realization ought to have dawned on the current government in Sri Lanka, for instance, some while ago but it has no choice but to abide by IMF dictates since economic survival at present is unthinkable without the latter’s succour.
Accordingly for SAARC this should be the time for some soul-searching. Priority needs to be attached to ending the feuding between India and Pakistan since at present the material fortunes of the region hinge largely on these regional giants giving peaceful relations among them a try. This is no easy challenge to meet but some daring, visionary diplomacy needs to take hold among the rest of SAARC.
There is some sense in SAARC bringing the peoples of the region together through programs that address their best collective interests. A meeting of minds among SAARC nations could enable SAARC and its agencies to build a region-wide people’s movement for progressive political and economic change that could in turn lead to the region’s political leaders sensitizing themselves more to the neglected needs of their publics.
However, the time is ‘now’ for the initiation of these progressive changes and the voice of SAARC well wishers would need to drown out those of their critics.
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