Features
Promoting efficiency in economic governance and obtaining investment for development
Digital Economy in Sri Lanka:
by Dr W.G. Somaratne
PhD (Econ), Latrobe, Australia; MSc (Ag.Econ), London;
BA (Econ), First Class, (USJP); Freelance Development Consultant,
Ex-Economist (ADB), (Part Time); Ex-Head and Senior Research Fellow (HARTI); and Visiting Lecturer,
(USJP); Email: wgsomaratne@gmail.com
The digital economy represents a transformative shift in the way businesses, governments, and individuals interact, trade, and create value. For Sri Lanka, this shift towards digitalisation presents a vital opportunity to stimulate economic growth, enhance economic governance, and social inclusion, and improve service delivery across the country. The expansion of digital infrastructure and increasing access to mobile technology and internet services have already paved the way for new economic models, from e-commerce to digital finance and remote work. With a strategic focus on building a resilient digital economy, Sri Lanka can address critical challenges such as unemployment, regional economic disparities, and limited access to global markets, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
A robust digital economy can empower Sri Lankan citizens, providing access to global markets, financial services, education, and healthcare through advancing new technology by opening opportunities for the general public. It also enables innovation and entrepreneurship development by reducing barriers to entry, encouraging startups, and supporting local industries in becoming globally competitive. However, realizing the full potential of a digital economy requires significant investment in digital infrastructure, improvement in digital literacy, and a regulatory environment that promotes security, trust, and innovation. With the right framework and collaborative efforts, Sri Lanka’s digital economy can play a pivotal role in the nation’s journey towards a sustainable, inclusive, and competitive future on the global stage.
Need for digital economy in Sri Lanka
The transition to a digital economy is critical for Sri Lanka’s development, as it provides avenues for economic growth, social inclusion, and improved governance. By embracing digitalisation, Sri Lanka can modernise traditional agriculture, manufacturing and service sectors, increase competitiveness, and overcome existing economic limitations.
Economic Growth and Employment Creation
Digital tools and platforms can improve productivity across sectors, from agriculture to manufacturing and services, by streamlining processes, enhancing data analysis, and reducing costs. The digital economy offers new avenues for employment in sectors like information technology, e-commerce, fintech, and digital marketing. These jobs can reduce youth unemployment, which remains a challenge in Sri Lanka. Further, digital tools empower SMEs by providing easier access to markets, customers, and resources through e-commerce platforms and social media. This can boost growth in the SME sector, as a vital part of Sri Lanka’s economy. Accordingly, some of the key reasons for the necessity of a digital economy for Sri Lanka’s development are explained below:
Fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Digital platforms enable aspiring entrepreneurs to develop startups with lower initial investments. This fosters a culture of innovation, leading to the creation of unique solutions to local and global challenges. Further, a focus on digital can drive the development of solutions in fintech, health tech, agri-tech, and edu-tech sectors, addressing specific needs in Sri Lanka’s context, like financial inclusion, healthcare access, and agricultural productivity.
Enhancing Global Competitiveness
A digital economy allows Sri Lankan businesses, especially SMEs, to access international markets and access to finance more easily. This can boost exports and promote Sri Lanka as a global supplier of IT and knowledge services. Developing a digital economy demonstrates that Sri Lanka is forward-thinking, which can attract foreign direct investment (FDI) in 4IR technology, telecommunications, and knowledge-based industries including SMEs in the country.
Strengthening Governance and Transparency
Promoting Digital Government Services can be performed, especially, the establishment of a digital economy in Sri Lanka, which enables efficient and transparent government services, reducing bureaucratic hegemonies and delays and corruption in the government institutions. E-governance can improve public service delivery in areas like licensing and taxation in Customs, the Department of Inland Revenue and the Exercise Department, and promote social welfare in the country. Further, the decision-making in government organizations could be improved based on Data-Driven Decision-Making in the country (eg. Digitized Food Storage System). In particular, access to real-time data enables the government to make informed decisions on infrastructure, healthcare, education, and public safety, which can lead to better resource allocation and promote Smart Infrastructure, Smart Health, Smart Education, Smart Security, Smart Agriculture etc.
Facilitating Financial Inclusion: Digital banking, mobile payments, and online financial platforms improve access to banking services, especially in underserved regions. This enables more people to participate in the economy, save money, and invest in their businesses by promoting access to financial services. In addition, it improves the Growth in Fintech. The fintech sector can help provide credit, microfinance, and savings solutions to SME businesses and individuals, especially in rural areas, stimulating economic activity and growth.
Improving Education and Skill Development
The digital literacy level in ri Lanka needs to improve through digital tools and resources, which enhances education by providing access to online courses, resources, and remote learning. This can bridge education gaps and the digital divide, especially in rural areas. In addition, it can promote Skill Development for the Future, particularly, because a digital economy encourages the acquisition of skills in AI, data science, coding, digital marketing, e-business and e-commerce, which are in high demand globally. This improves employability for youth and women and prepares Sri Lanka’s workforce for the global future.
Environmental Sustainability
A digital economy reduces the need for physical infrastructure and travel, which can help minimise carbon emissions. Remote work, for instance, reduces the need for commuting, lowering the demand for fuel, decreasing pollution etc.. Further, digital solutions in areas like agriculture and energy enable more efficient use of resources, such as precision farming techniques that reduce water and pesticide use, contributing to goals of environmental sustainability and Smart Resource Management.
Challenges to Address for a Successful Digital Economy in Sri Lanka
While the benefits of a digital economy are clear, Sri Lanka faces some challenges in realizing this vision:
Digital Literacy Improving digital skills and literacy, particularly in underserved areas, will be essential for widespread adoption to promote the functioning of the digital economy.
Regulatory and Policy Framework: Clear, supportive policies that encourage digital innovation and protect consumer rights are needed to support a digital economy.
Infrastructure Development
Expanding internet access and digital infrastructure, especially in rural areas, is crucial to promote connectivity.
Cybersecurity and Privacy
Ensuring robust cybersecurity and data protection measures is also critical as more services and businesses move online and promote the concept of Smart Cities in the country.
The functions of the proposed new Ministry of Digital Economic Development would be to make decisions regarding the promotion of the digital economy in Sri Lanka and the provision of digital solutions for the development and promotion of digital economic governance and entrepreneurship development in the digital economy. The digital economy will be established by networking with all government institutions in Sri Lanka to promote efficiency in economic governance, which reduces transaction costs, and provides services with efficiency and effectiveness.
In particular, the management of the human capital and digital economy is less effective because many of these functions are not performed with the modern standards to promote efficiency in the human capital operational functions.
Accordingly, malfunctioning of the processes is rampant, no time management, and prolonged delays in service delivery, which denies the gaining of improving human capital in the country. However, the development of both the human capital and digital economy is necessary for operating with maximum efficiency for utilizing the hard-earned taxpayers’ funds. The only solution is establishing a digital economy linking all the government organizations together with the digital network to get rid of financial fraud, malpractices, bribery and corruption by using blockchain technology. For this purpose, Smart Health, Smart Education, Smart Custom, Smart Inland Revenue and Smart Exercise Department are some of the priority projects in the digital economy of Sri Lanka. Establishing and Promoting SMART Cities is also considered a necessary project for attracting investment to link the public and private sectors working together for national development. Eventually, it will assist in increasing government revenue as well.
Digital Economy and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
Human capital development refers to the process of enhancing the knowledge, skills, abilities, and overall well-being of individuals, contributing to their personal and professional growth. Intellectual skills, innovation and information technology assist in wealth creation and lead to a knowledge-based economic system for Sri Lanka’s economic transformation. A Digital Economy in the transformed Sri Lanka that maximizes the use of digital technologies sustainably. It has three main scopes (a) Core scope as a Digital (IT/ICT) sector; (b) Narrow scope: Digital Economy; and (c) Broad Scope: Digitalized Economy and Society. The digital economy expects to transform the Sri Lankan economy into a fully pledged digitalized economy to gain advantages in improving economic governance attracting investment with 4IR technology and maximizing the economic and social well-being of the people.
Strategic Framework for Adopting the Digital Economy
The Strategic Framework for establishing and functioning a Digital Economy in Sri Lanka needs to establish 15 ‘Fortune Economic Zones (FEZs)’. Through these proposed FEZs, it is expected to invest in generating employment opportunities for youth and women and foreign income for the country. The proposed 15 digital FEZs are as follows:
Digitalized Economy and Society –
1 Fortune Economic Zone – For Establishing 5 Smart Cities within 3 years (pilot in Kandy and Gampaha and other 3 cities are Colombo, Matara, and Jaffna);
Adopting Smart Governance System:
1 – Fortune Economic Zone, covering E-Government Services for online public service delivery, covering Digital Platforms for citizen engagement and participation.; and Open data initiatives to provide public access to government data. Issuing a Personal Identification Number (PIN) for each citizen of the country is vital to promoting good governance and a corruption-free society. Sri Lanka needs to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for corruption, fraud and malpractices in the country. In addition, by adopting 4IR – blockchain technology in the operation of economically critical sub-sectors like customs, the Department of Inland Revenue and the Exercise Department, the government will be able to assist in maximising the generation of government revenue greatly.
Smart Mobility:
1- Fortune Economic Zone – for Intelligent transportation systems; it includes Real-time traffic management and monitoring; Smart parking solutions, and Public transportation enhancements, covering real-time tracking and scheduling;
Smart Energy –
1 Fortune Economic Zone: for Energy-efficient technologies and infrastructure; including Smart grids for efficient energy distribution; Renewable energy sources (solar, wind, waste) integration and Energy management systems for monitoring and optimizing energy consumption;
Smart Buildings and Infrastructure:
1 Fortune Economic Zone for Energy-efficient and sustainable building designs; Building automation systems for energy conservation; Smart street lighting with sensors for adaptive lighting; and Infrastructure monitoring for maintenance and safety;
Smart Environment:
1 Fortune Economic Zone, for Air and water quality monitoring systems; covering Waste management solutions, including smart bins and recycling programs; Green spaces and urban planning for environmental sustainability;
Smart Healthcare:
1 Fortune Economic Zone; Telemedicine and e-health services; it includes Health monitoring through wearable devices and sensors; Electronic health records and networking for efficient healthcare management in both state and private healthcare institutions/hospitals, Patient registration and management etc.
Smart Education:
1 Fortune Economic Zone for E-learning platforms and digital classrooms; Smart campuses with technology-enhanced learning environments; and Educational analytics for personalized learning;
Smart Security:
1 Fortune Economic Zone for Surveillance systems with video analytics; Emergency response and disaster management systems; and Cybersecurity measures to protect digital infrastructure;
Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI):
1 Fortune Economic Zone for Big data analytics for extracting valuable insights from vast datasets; AI applications for predictive analysis and decision-making; Machine learning algorithms for optimizing city services (Eg. Stock and Buffer Stock Management Systems in the economy covering both the private and state sectors’ operations).
Internet of Things (IoT):
1 Fortune Economic Zone for Sensor networks and IoT devices for collecting real-time data; and Smart sensors for monitoring and managing various aspects of city life.
Citizen Engagement and Social Innovation:
1 Fortune Economic Zone for Platforms for citizen feedback and participation, and Initiatives promoting social innovation and entrepreneurship development.
Establishing an IT park for attracting FDI
– One Fortune Economic Zone – Silicon Valley IT Park in Malambe;
Establishing an IT park for attracting FDI
– 1 Fortune Economic Zone – Silicon Valley IT Park in Gampaha; and
Establishing an IT Park for attracting FDI
– 1 Fortune Economic Zone – Silicon Valley IT Park in Avissawella
Concluding Remarks
The development of a digital economy is a pathway to sustainable and inclusive growth in Sri Lanka. By operationalising the above strategic interventions, improving economic productivity, increasing financial inclusion, fostering innovation, and enhancing governance, a digital economy could help Sri Lanka meet its development goals and compete globally. With a strategic approach and investment in the necessary IT infrastructure, and skills, and operationalizing the above strategic operational framework with ‘Establishing ‘Fortune Economic Zones’, Sri Lanka can make a successful transition to a thriving digital economy.
In one of India’s coldest and most remote regions, a group of women have taken on an unlikely role: protecting one of Asia’s most elusive predators, the snow leopard.
Snow leopards are found in just 12 countries across Central and South Asia. India is home to one of the world’s largest populations, with a nationwide survey in 2023 – the first comprehensive count ever carried out in the country – estimating more than 700 animals, .
One of the places they roam is around Kibber village in Himachal Pradesh state’s Spiti Valley, a stark, high-altitude cold desert along the Himalayan belt. Here, snow leopards are often called the “ghosts of the mountains”, slipping silently across rocky slopes and rarely revealing themselves.
For generations, the animals were seen largely as a threat, for attacking livestock. But attitudes in Kibber and neighbouring villages are beginning to shift, as people increasingly recognise the snow leopard’s role as a top predator in the food chain and its importance in maintaining the region’s fragile mountain ecosystem.
Nearly a dozen local women are now working alongside the Himachal Pradesh forest department and conservationists to track and protect the species, playing a growing role in conservation efforts.
Locally, the snow leopard is known as Shen and the women call their group “Shenmo”. Trained to install and monitor camera traps, they handle devices fitted with unique IDs and memory cards that automatically photograph snow leopards as they pass.
“Earlier, men used to go and install the cameras and we kept wondering why couldn’t we do it too,” says Lobzang Yangchen, a local coordinator working with a small group supported by the non-profit Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) in collaboration with the forest department.
Yangchen was among the women who helped collect data for Himachal Pradesh’s snow leopard survey in 2024, which found that the state was home to 83 snow leopards – up from 51 in 2021.
The survey documented snow leopards and 43 other species using camera traps spread across an area of nearly 26,000sq km (10,000sq miles). Individual leopards were identified by the unique rosette patterns on their fur, a standard technique used for spotted big cats. The findings are now feeding into wider conservation and habitat-management plans.
“Their contribution was critical to identifying individual animals,” says Goldy Chhabra, deputy conservator of forests with the Spiti Wildlife Division.
Collecting the data is demanding work. Most of it takes place in winter, when heavy snowfall pushes snow leopards and their prey to lower altitudes, making their routes easier to track.
On survey days, the women wake up early, finish household chores and gather at a base camp before travelling by vehicle as far as the terrain allows. From there, they trek several kilometres to reach camera sites, often at altitudes above 14,000ft (4,300m), where the thin air makes even simple movement exhausting.
The BBC accompanied the group on one such trek in December. After hours of walking in biting cold, the women suddenly stopped on a narrow trail.
Yangchen points to pugmarks in the dust: “This shows the snow leopard has been here recently. These pugmarks are fresh.”
Along with pugmarks, the team looks for other signs, including scrapes and scent‑marking spots, before carefully fixing a camera to a rock along the trail.
One woman then carries out a “walk test”, crawling along the path to check whether the camera’s height and angle will capture a clear image.
The group then moves on to older sites, retrieving memory cards and replacing batteries installed weeks earlier.
By mid-afternoon, they return to camp to log and analyse the images using specialised software – tools many had never encountered before.
“I studied only until grade five,” says Chhering Lanzom. “At first, I was scared to use the computer. But slowly, we learned how to use the keyboard and mouse.”
The women joined the camera-trapping programme in 2023. Initially, conservation was not their motivation. But winters in the Spiti Valley are long and quiet, with little agricultural work to fall back on.
“At first, this work on snow leopards didn’t interest us,” Lobzang says. “We joined because we were curious and we could earn a small income.”
The women earn between 500 ($5.46; £4) and 700 rupees a day.
But beyond the money, the work has helped transform how the community views the animal.
“Earlier, we thought the snow leopard was our enemy,” says Dolma Zangmo, a local resident. “Now we think their conservation is important.”
Alongside survey work, the women help villagers access government insurance schemes for their livestock and promote the use of predator‑proof corrals – stone or mesh enclosures that protect animals at night.
Their efforts come at a time of growing recognition for the region. Spiti Valley has recently been included in the Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve, a Unesco-recognised network aimed at conserving fragile ecosystems while supporting local livelihoods.
As climate change reshapes the fragile trans-Himalayan landscape, conservationists say such community participation will be crucial to safeguarding species like the snow leopard.
“Once communities are involved, conservation becomes more sustainable,” says Deepshikha Sharma, programme manager with NCF’s High Altitudes initiative.
“These women are not just assisting, they are becoming practitioners of wildlife conservation and monitoring,” she adds.
As for the women, their work makes them feel closer to their home, the village and the mountains that raised them, they say.
“We were born here, this is all we know,” Lobzang says. “Sometimes we feel afraid because these snow leopards are after all predatory animals, but this is where we belong.”
[BBC]
If elephants are truly to be given “freedom” in Udawalawe, the solution is not simply to open gates or redraw park boundaries. The map itself tells the real story — a story of shrinking habitats, broken corridors, and more than a decade of silent but relentless ecological destruction.
“Look at Udawalawe today and compare it with satellite maps from ten years ago,” says Sameera Weerathunga, one of Sri Lanka’s most consistent and vocal elephant conservation activists. “You don’t need complicated science. You can literally see what we have done to them.”
What we commonly describe as the human–elephant conflict (HEC) is, in reality, a land-use conflict driven by development policies that ignore ecological realities. Elephants are not invading villages; villages, farms, highways and megaprojects have steadily invaded elephant landscapes.
Udawalawe: From Landscape to Island
Udawalawe National Park was once part of a vast ecological network connecting the southern dry zone to the central highlands and eastern forests. Elephants moved freely between Udawalawe, Lunugamvehera, Bundala, Gal Oya and even parts of the Walawe river basin, following seasonal water and food availability.
Today, Udawalawe appears on the map as a shrinking green island surrounded by human settlements, monoculture plantations, reservoirs, electric fences and asphalt.
“For elephants, Udawalawe is like a prison surrounded by invisible walls,” Sameera explains. “We expect animals that evolved to roam hundreds of square nationakilometres to survive inside a box created by humans.”
Elephants are ecosystem engineers. They shape forests by dispersing seeds, opening pathways, and regulating vegetation. Their survival depends on movement — not containment. But in Udawalawa, movement is precisely what has been taken away.
Over the past decade, ancient elephant corridors have been blocked or erased by:
Irrigation and agricultural expansion
Tourism resorts and safari infrastructure
New roads, highways and power lines
Human settlements inside former forest reserves
Sameera
“The destruction didn’t happen overnight,” Sameera says. “It happened project by project, fence by fence, without anyone looking at the cumulative impact.”
The Illusion of Protection
Sri Lanka prides itself on its protected area network. Yet most national parks function as ecological islands rather than connected systems.
“We think declaring land as a ‘national park’ is enough,” Sameera argues. “But protection without connectivity is just slow extinction.”
Udawalawe currently holds far more elephants than it can sustainably support. The result is habitat degradation inside the park, increased competition for resources, and escalating conflict along the boundaries.
“When elephants cannot move naturally, they turn to crops, tanks and villages,” Sameera says. “And then we blame the elephant for being a problem.”
The Other Side of the Map: Wanni and Hambantota
Sameera often points to the irony visible on the very same map. While elephants are squeezed into overcrowded parks in the south, large landscapes remain in the Wanni, parts of Hambantota and the eastern dry zone where elephant density is naturally lower and ecological space still exists.
“We keep talking about Udawalawe as if it’s the only place elephants exist,” he says. “But the real question is why we are not restoring and reconnecting landscapes elsewhere.”
The Hambantota MER (Managed Elephant Reserve), for instance, was originally designed as a landscape-level solution. The idea was not to trap elephants inside fences, but to manage land use so that people and elephants could coexist through zoning, seasonal access, and corridor protection.
“But what happened?” Sameera asks. “Instead of managing land, we managed elephants. We translocated them, fenced them, chased them, tranquilised them. And the conflict only got worse.”
The Failure of Translocation
For decades, Sri Lanka relied heavily on elephant translocation as a conflict management tool. Hundreds of elephants were captured from conflict zones and released into national parks like Udawalawa, Yala and Wilpattu.
Elephant deaths
The logic was simple: remove the elephant, remove the problem.
The reality was tragic.
“Most translocated elephants try to return home,” Sameera explains. “They walk hundreds of kilometres, crossing highways, railway lines and villages. Many die from exhaustion, accidents or gunshots. Others become even more aggressive.”
Scientific studies now confirm what conservationists warned from the beginning: translocation increases stress, mortality, and conflict. Displaced elephants often lose social structures, familiar landscapes, and access to traditional water sources.
“You cannot solve a spatial problem with a transport solution,” Sameera says bluntly.
In many cases, the same elephant is captured and moved multiple times — a process that only deepens trauma and behavioural change.
Freedom Is Not About Removing Fences
The popular slogan “give elephants freedom” has become emotionally powerful but scientifically misleading. Elephants do not need symbolic freedom; they need functional landscapes.
Real solutions lie in:
Restoring elephant corridors
Preventing development in key migratory routes
Creating buffer zones with elephant-friendly crops
Community-based land-use planning
Landscape-level conservation instead of park-based thinking
“We must stop treating national parks like wildlife prisons and villages like war zones,” Sameera insists. “The real battlefield is land policy.”
Electric fences, for instance, are often promoted as a solution. But fences merely shift conflict from one village to another.
“A fence does not create peace,” Sameera says. “It just moves the problem down the line.”
A Crisis Created by Humans
Sri Lanka loses more than 400 elephants and nearly 100 humans every year due to HEC — one of the highest rates globally.
Yet Sameera refuses to call it a wildlife problem.
“This is a human-created crisis,” he says. “Elephants are only responding to what we’ve done to their world.”
From expressways cutting through forests to solar farms replacing scrublands, development continues without ecological memory or long-term planning.
“We plan five-year political cycles,” Sameera notes. “Elephants plan in centuries.”
The tragedy is not just ecological. It is moral.
“We are destroying a species that is central to our culture, religion, tourism and identity,” Sameera says. “And then we act surprised when they fight back.”
The Question We Avoid Asking
If Udawalawe is overcrowded, if Yala is saturated, if Wilpattu is bursting — then the real question is not where to put elephants.
The real question is: Where have we left space for wildness in Sri Lanka?
Sameera believes the future lies not in more fences or more parks, but in reimagining land itself.
“Conservation cannot survive as an island inside a development ocean,” he says. “Either we redesign Sri Lanka to include elephants, or one day we’ll only see them in logos, statues and children’s books.”
And the map will show nothing but empty green patches — places where giants once walked, and humans chose. roads instead.
By Ifham Nizam
SAARC or the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has been declared ‘dead’ by some sections in South Asia and the idea seems to be catching on. Over the years the evidence seems to have been building that this is so, but a matter that requires thorough probing is whether the media in South Asia, given the vital part it could play in fostering regional amity, has had a role too in bringing about SAARC’s apparent demise.
That South Asian governments have had a hand in the ‘SAARC debacle’ is plain to see. For example, it is beyond doubt that the India-Pakistan rivalry has invariably got in the way, particularly over the past 15 years or thereabouts, of the Indian and Pakistani governments sitting at the negotiating table and in a spirit of reconciliation resolving the vexatious issues growing out of the SAARC exercise. The inaction had a paralyzing effect on the organization.
Unfortunately the rest of South Asian governments too have not seen it to be in the collective interest of the region to explore ways of jump-starting the SAARC process and sustaining it. That is, a lack of statesmanship on the part of the SAARC Eight is clearly in evidence. Narrow national interests have been allowed to hijack and derail the cooperative process that ought to be at the heart of the SAARC initiative.
However, a dimension that has hitherto gone comparatively unaddressed is the largely negative role sections of the media in the SAARC region could play in debilitating regional cooperation and amity. We had some thought-provoking ‘takes’ on this question recently from Roman Gautam, the editor of ‘Himal Southasian’.
Gautam was delivering the third of talks on February 2nd in the RCSS Strategic Dialogue Series under the aegis of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo, at the latter’s conference hall. The forum was ably presided over by RCSS Executive Director and Ambassador (Retd.) Ravinatha Aryasinha who, among other things, ensured lively participation on the part of the attendees at the Q&A which followed the main presentation. The talk was titled, ‘Where does the media stand in connecting (or dividing) Southasia?’.
Gautam singled out those sections of the Indian media that are tamely subservient to Indian governments, including those that are professedly independent, for the glaring lack of, among other things, regionalism or collective amity within South Asia. These sections of the media, it was pointed out, pander easily to the narratives framed by the Indian centre on developments in the region and fall easy prey, as it were, to the nationalist forces that are supportive of the latter. Consequently, divisive forces within the region receive a boost which is hugely detrimental to regional cooperation.
Two cases in point, Gautam pointed out, were the recent political upheavals in Nepal and Bangladesh. In each of these cases stray opinions favorable to India voiced by a few participants in the relevant protests were clung on to by sections of the Indian media covering these trouble spots. In the case of Nepal, to consider one example, a young protester’s single comment to the effect that Nepal too needed a firm leader like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seized upon by the Indian media and fed to audiences at home in a sensational, exaggerated fashion. No effort was made by the Indian media to canvass more opinions on this matter or to extensively research the issue.
In the case of Bangladesh, widely held rumours that the Hindus in the country were being hunted and killed, pogrom fashion, and that the crisis was all about this was propagated by the relevant sections of the Indian media. This was a clear pandering to religious extremist sentiment in India. Once again, essentially hearsay stories were given prominence with hardly any effort at understanding what the crisis was really all about. There is no doubt that anti-Muslim sentiment in India would have been further fueled.
Gautam was of the view that, in the main, it is fear of victimization of the relevant sections of the media by the Indian centre and anxiety over financial reprisals and like punitive measures by the latter that prompted the media to frame their narratives in these terms. It is important to keep in mind these ‘structures’ within which the Indian media works, we were told. The issue in other words, is a question of the media completely subjugating themselves to the ruling powers.
Basically, the need for financial survival on the part of the Indian media, it was pointed out, prompted it to subscribe to the prejudices and partialities of the Indian centre. A failure to abide by the official line could spell financial ruin for the media.
A principal question that occurred to this columnist was whether the ‘Indian media’ referred to by Gautam referred to the totality of the Indian media or whether he had in mind some divisive, chauvinistic and narrow-based elements within it. If the latter is the case it would not be fair to generalize one’s comments to cover the entirety of the Indian media. Nevertheless, it is a matter for further research.
However, an overall point made by the speaker that as a result of the above referred to negative media practices South Asian regionalism has suffered badly needs to be taken. Certainly, as matters stand currently, there is a very real information gap about South Asian realities among South Asian publics and harmful media practices account considerably for such ignorance which gets in the way of South Asian cooperation and amity.
Moreover, divisive, chauvinistic media are widespread and active in South Asia. Sri Lanka has a fair share of this species of media and the latter are not doing the country any good, leave alone the region. All in all, the democratic spirit has gone well into decline all over the region.
The above is a huge problem that needs to be managed reflectively by democratic rulers and their allied publics in South Asia and the region’s more enlightened media could play a constructive role in taking up this challenge. The latter need to take the initiative to come together and deliberate on the questions at hand. To succeed in such efforts they do not need the backing of governments. What is of paramount importance is the vision and grit to go the extra mile.
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