Tell bus mudalalis where to get off

Thursday 9th January, 2025

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s signature project, ‘Clean Sri Lanka’, is experiencing some teething problems. One of this catch-all project’s objectives is to enforce road discipline, the absence of which is the main reason for the ever-increasing fatal accidents which snuff out precious lives at the rate of seven or eight a day. As for road chaos, the worst culprits are the undisciplined private bus and trishaw drivers, who are now all out to prevent the police from depriving them of the freedom of the wild ass they have been enjoying all these years under successive governments.

Private bus owners are on the warpath. They have threatened to stage a countrywide strike unless the police abandon the ongoing operation to prevent traffic law violations and strip private buses and trishaws of unauthorised accessories. Speculation was rife at the time of writing that the private bus operators were likely to succeed in their endeavour. A bus strike is something that a new government needs like a hole in the head.

Some bus mudalalis and tuk-tuk drivers have sought to give their campaign against the police a religious twist; they claim that the police are ordering the removal of dashboard Buddha figurines. Private buses and trishaws are mobile shrines with various religious icons obstructing their drivers’ field of vision. All these objects must be removed to ensure road safety. If the drivers who display them are as religious as they claim to be, they should be compassionate and considerate towards others, especially their passengers. In fact, the police are doing a great service to religions by removing the icons associated with them from the vehicles driven by undisciplined individuals.

It is a supreme irony that the private bus operators who readily followed the JVP’s illegal orders in the late 1980s, are now refusing to obey the law under a democratically elected JVP-led government!

The police insist that their special operation to discipline private bus and trishaw drivers is legal, and their claim can be thought to stand to reason, for the owners of private buses and trishaws have not challenged their action in court. Instead of resorting to legal action, the protesting bus mudalalis and trishaw drivers are trying to leverage their political connections to scuttle the ongoing programme to enforce road discipline. They overwhelmingly backed the NPP in last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, and in doing so, they endorsed, among other things, the NPP’s solemn pledge to restore the rule of law and ensure that nobody would be above the law. Now, they are pressuring the NPP government to bend the law to safeguard their interests. With supporters like them, who needs enemies?

When the NPP enlisted the support of the trishaw and private bus fraternities to win elections last year, we warned it that it was making a huge mistake. It could have won elections without their backing. The public is antipathetic towards the private bus and trishaw operators who are bent on exploiting passengers, and therefore such characters cannot help a political party gain any traction, much less shore up its chances of winning elections.

If the NPP government gives the police a free hand to deal with the errant bus and trishaw operators firmly and ensure road safety, its approval rating will skyrocket.

There were over five million nonvoters in the last general election, and the NPP may be able to secure the support of most of them by taking action to restore the rule of law, which is a prerequisite for turning this country around. Even most of those who are not well-disposed towards the NPP and voted against it in the last two elections are likely to soften their position if the government tells the bus and trishaw operators where to get off. Will the government pluck up the courage to do so?