The food crisis and policies towards the Press late in Mrs. B’s second term

(Excerpted from the autobiography of MDD Pieris, Secretary to the Prime Minister)

I would, at this stage, like to refer to two important domestic issues that came up during the latter part of the Prime Minister’s term of office. These were, the food crisis that occurred around 1974/75 and the government’s attitude to the Press, which culminated in the sealing of the Dawasa/Sun Group of Newspapers and the take over of the Lake House Group of Newspapers.

The food crisis was largely a result of the sharp hike in the price of crude oil in 1973, as a consequence of the combined actions taken by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC. This was a reaction of basically developing oil exporting countries to what was considered to be the exploitative practices of the large multi-national oil companies, representing the rich developed countries. OPEC was reacting against unequal agreements and artificially low prices.

This action, whilst affecting the developed countries hit the non-oil producing developing countries such as Sri Lanka very hard. In a tight foreign exchange situation, caused by declining prices for plantation agricultural commodities such as tea, rubber and coconut, crude oil and petroleum products had now to be imported at about double the cost. This exacerbated inflation and budget deficits.

Internationally, not only the price of oil, but also the price of vital agricultural inputs, like fertilizer shot up in price. This, whilst impacting on domestic agriculture such as rice had repercussions also on the world production of commodities such as rice, wheat and other crops. World inflation rose coincident with weather related crop reductions, in many areas, including Sri Lanka. The price of rice, flour and sugar more than doubled in world markets, when we were facing a declining import capacity due to foreign exchange constraints, aggravated by the much higher price for oil.

What emerged was a stark and gloomy picture, and the very real threat of diminished food supplies. malnourishment and even pockets of starvation. The government’s emergency food drive personally led by the Prime Minister with an immediate emphasis on short term crops such as manioc, sweet potatoes and other yams was the response. Drastic measures were taken. Government brought in regulations to prevent the serving of rice in any hotel or eating-house for two days a week. Food could not be served at weddings or other functions where the number of people exceeded one hundred.

The sugar ration was reduced and the issue of flour curtailed. Bread became scarce, and this impacted adversely on the urban areas in particular. Bread queues began to form outside bakeries, and when things got worse people began to queue outside bakeries at 4 o’clock in the morning. Food availability became visibly short, and prices increased hurting the poor. Little children could be seen rummaging in dustbins in search of food scraps. The community helped.

Many people who could afford it either gave money or food when persons came round asking. Down our own lane, people contributed what they could. We ourselves regularly gave food to three small children living in an adjoining lane, which had a cluster of poor homes. Later it was nice to see them as grown up men. In retrospect, I believe that the emergency food drive directed at increasing the short-term food supply was a wise decision.

The outputs of various kinds of yams in particular, increased substantially, and this provided a substitute for rice and bread. This, quick increase in the domestic food supply was important also from the psychological angle, because people saw that substitute foods were available in the markets. There was however, one response by the government which proved quite excessive. This was the prohibition on the transport of rice within the country and the erection of checkpoints or “rice barriers,” in order to give effect to this.

This was clearly an over reaction, extremely unpopular with the people and lending itself to both corruption and harassment. All these measures, were designed and implemented by a team drawn from the Ministries of Agriculture and Planning. The prevailing ideological climate also resulted in a mindset directed towards controls.

I do not have much to say in relation to the governments’ action regarding the press. The prevailing ideologies were a part of it. I am aware that the government from their point of view were almost continuously concerned about the distortions, half truths, and even untruths appearing in the Lake House and Dawasa Group of Newspapers, over a considerable period of time. They came to believe that these were sustained and concerted attempts by right-wing forces to embarrass and destabilize the government, because they wanted to do away with a government with a “Socialist Programme,” and install in its place a government which would follow “a Capitalist” policy.

Whether there was a degree of paranoia in these views, I cannot say. But that there was a considerable degree of biased, distorted and selective, reporting was a fact. Whether a democratic government should have gone so far as to seal the Dawasa Press and to take over Lake House would be a debatable question. A charge of over reaction would not be unwarranted. It would also be true to say that the government displayed an authoritarian bent, in certain areas. These decisions, however, were taken at political levels, after discussions in political groups, and the involvement of career public servants was confined to preparing the necessary gazette notifications, and dealing with the legal and administrative issues of implementation.