Features
“TRAVEL SAFE – TRAVEL CHEAP – TRAVEL BY RAIL.”
By Rohan Abeygunawardena
ACMA, CGMA: Financial and Management Consultant.
abeyrohan@gmail.com
(This article is dedicated to all those officers and other employees who worked under the late Mr. Rampala, during “Golden Era “of the CGR from the late 1940s’ to 1970 including my father the late Mr. G.A.V. Abeygunawardena)
Above was a marketing campaign slogan based on a concept of the legendary leader of Ceylon Government Railway (CGR) B.D. Rampala to attract passengers for train travel.
Rampala was the first Ceylonese Chief Mechanical Engineer from 1949 and then was appointed to the newly created post of General Manager of Railway (GMR) in 1955. He joined CGR in 1934 as a Junior Mechanical Engineer after completing his engineering apprenticeship at the Colombo University College. In 1956, the Institution of Locomotive Engineers in London recognised him as the finest diesel engineer in Asia at the time (Wikipedia.)
History of Sri Lanka Railway
It was the coffee planters who first felt the need to construct a railroad system in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1842. Under pressure from this elite group of the crown colony, Ceylon Railway Company (CRC) was established in 1845 under the Chairmanship of Phillip Anstruther, the Chief Secretary of Ceylon. The contractor William Thomas Doyne was selected for constructing the 79-mile (123 km) Colombo Kandy railway line and later it was realised that the project could not be completed within the original estimate of £856,557. In 1861, Ceylon Government Railway (CGR) was established as a department and took over the construction work. Guilford Lindsey Molesworth, an experienced railway engineer from London, was appointed as the Director General of the CGR.
It took nearly 22 years to build the first stretch of railroad and run the first train from Colombo to Ambepussa in December 1864. It was then extended to Kandy in 1867, the main request of British Planters. Thereafter to Nawalapitiya, Nanuoya, Bandarawella, and Badulla by 1924. However by 1928, the Matale line, the Kankasanturai (Northern Line), the Southern Coast Line, the Mannar Line, the Kelani Valley Line, the Puttalam Line, the Batticaloa and Trincomalee lines were added to the network.
Golden Era of Sri Lanka Railway
Visionary Rampala had a helicopter view of the organisation. During his tenure as the GMR many modernisation programmes were introduced. He had systematically planned to replace British-built steam locomotives with Diesel locomotives over a 20-year period. Five G12 Diesel locomotives, gifted by the Canadian Government, in 1954, were utilised to run Sri Lanka’s most famous trains, the Udarata Menike, the Yal Devi, and the Ruhunu Kumari, the three sisters on rails.
Emphasising punctuality and comfort, major stations outside Colombo were upgraded during the Rampala era. He also introduced an electronic signal system controlled by a centralised traffic control panel in Maradana, which greatly improved safety. In order to popularise rail travel he carried out a marketing exercise of the railway service through a slogan “Travel Safe – Travel Cheap – Travel by Rail.” The objective of this marketing campaign was to attract non-traditional rail passengers, such as women and children, and increase the market share of travellers and improve income of CGR.
Rampala tenure is considered as the ‘Golden Era of Sri Lanka Railways.’ He successfully conducted the grand Centenary Celebrations held in 1964. The main highlight was a refurbished old steam engine driven train, with old carriages, operating from the Colombo Terminus station of Olcott Mawatha to Ambepussa, carrying passengers, driver and guard dressed in late 19th century attire. The train left around 8 a.m. followed by a diesel engine, driven modern train carrying CGR employees and their immediate family members. The writer who was just 14 years was lucky enough to travel in that train with his father who was an officer in the CGR. An exhibition of model trains was also held at Maradana head office for the public. Some of the models were locally made by railroad enthusiasts and CGR engineers while others were imported models owned by locals and foreigners.
In spite of an economic decline in the country Sri Lanka Railways (SLR) continued with the numbers of its passenger services and enjoyed nearly 38% of freight transportation in the early seventies.
But with the introduction of the open economy, the road transportation systems improved and private road transport services that provided door-to-door or warehouse-to-warehouse service captured a bigger chunk of the freight service market of the country. The three-decades-long civil war, non-introduction of technological innovations that improved railway travel worldwide, issues of travel time, reliability, and comfort plagued Sri Lanka Railways said the Chief Engineer (Signal and Telecomunications) Dhammika Jayasundara who delivered the B.D. Rampala memorial lecture in 2017.
US the world leader of railway
transportation:
The US had the best railway transportation system in the world, prior to World War II, with an operating route length over 250,000 km. But after the war, the American auto industry owners came out with a new concept ‘’Freedom on Wheels’’ to get people to use cars. This concept was to promote motor car industry and propagated by the companies in the auto and oil industries to enhance their profits. Initially, they bought up all the street cars i. e. trolleybuses and Tramcars relegating them to junkyards, and embarked on increasing the motor car production.
The government under President Eisenhower, signed a Bill to create the “The National Interstate System’’ and allocated funds for the construction of 41,000 miles of highways and the US shifted from a rail served country to auto dependent nation by the mid-sixties. They dedicated a huge amount of dollars to the construction of automobile infrastructure.
By 2019, the US averaged about 850 cars per one thousand inhabitants. Many countries in the west and Asia emulated the US and constructed highways. Indians, on the other hand continued to improve the railroad transportation system over the years. The Average Sri Lankan was dreaming of owning a car and when the economy was opened up in the late seventies, an influx of motorcars, motorcycles and other vehicles, both brand new and used, invaded the country.
Similarly, the expansion of air travel took place since the fifties, not only in the US but also in other countries. In the US internal air service systems were expanded rapidly for travel between cities.
In Sri Lanka too the government embarked on a project to improve road transport. During the Civil War it was on a low profile but increased construction of highways or express ways after the war from 2009.
Recent developments;
An efficient transport system is an indispensable component of a modern country, no doubt. They provide economic and social opportunities and benefits that result in positive multiplier effects such as better accessibility to markets, employment, and additional investments. Recently, this writer was approached by a group of industrialists to draw up a concept note to obtain land and other facilities from the authorities to set up new factories. One important requirement they emphasised was that location of the land should be close to an expressway. Since they have been into exports this is a fair request as their finished products should be moved to ports and airports as quickly as possible for shipping.
With the development of highways, especially expressways, Sri Lanka Railways (SLR), the market share of passenger and goods transportation has considerably dropped. Chief Engineer Dhammika Jayasundara in his 2017 lecture stated that while SLR’s share of passenger transportation market was only about 5% and goods transportation market share was around 0.3%. It would definitely have deteriorated further by now.
An opportunity for SLR:
The US is reassessing its transport systems at present. They have realised that the country is running out of space to expand the highways. There are limits at airports and aviation congestion is also an acute problem. Looking out for a solution, the US has now realised a better railway system is the best option.
But in today’s global economy ‘’time-saving methods” and “reduction of greenhouse gases” are two important factors when considering development projects. Therefore, electrified high-speed train is the best option to switch from air traffic and vehicles. A survey conducted indicates 71% of the younger generation (18 to 44) in the US prefer travelling by high-speed trains if available. Train systems reaching top speed of over 175 to 240 km per hour is generally considered high-speed. A plan is now in place to build a 27,000 km national high-speed rail system in four phases by 2030. The first project is to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles (about 613km) in less than three hours at a speed of about 350km/h by 2033.
When a high-speed train was introduced between Madrid–Barcelona in Spain in 2008, it took 46% of the traffic, grounding fuel-guzzling, carbon-emitting aircrafts across Spain. This high-speed train pulled by an aerodynamic engine with noses shaped like a duck-billed platypus covers 621km trip in two and half hours at a maximum speed of 350 km/h. The train has the capacity to carry 430 passengers per trip and operates four trips a day. This is an eye-opener to the Americans as well as transport authorities of other countries.
The first high-speed train the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, began operations in Japan in 1964 and was widely known as the ‘bullet train’. France commenced their first high-speed train in 1981 and as of June 2021 had a network 2,800 km.
In many developed countries, faced with issues such as aging population, rising fuel prices, increasing urbanization, increasing traffic congestion, rising roadway expansion costs, changing consumer preferences and increasing health and environmental concerns are shifting travel demand from automobile to alternative modes. Motor vehicles are the greatest contributor to urban air pollution, leading to health problems, worse than smoking and the other factor is deaths through road accidents.
Likely alternative is the high-speed train. This is the most cost-effective transportation mode for moving large numbers of people and compared to road and air transportation less risky as far as accidents are concerned. Today, high-speed train systems are being introduced all over the world in countries like India, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Morocco. China is the world leader in the construction of high-speed railway systems. By the end of 2020, the Chinese had 37,900 km of high-speed rail lines in service, the longest in the world.
Long-term- plan for SLR
Sri Lanka Railways should study the changing nature of transportation system in developed countries. Since our island nation does not have to cover distances like in the countries mentioned above, railway authorities benchmark a country like Denmark with an area of 42,933 sq. km and a population of 5.8 million. The first ever high-speed train on Copenhagen–Ringsted line commenced on the 31st May 2019 covering 60 km. It has a maximum speed of 250 km/h and covers the trip within 35 minutes. The project received approval from the Danish Parliament in 2010 and was completed in 2019 at a cost of US$ 1.83 billion.
In Sri Lanka, the fastest train service is between Colombo and Beliatta covering 158 km with a maximum speed of 120 km/h. The fastest train ‘Galu Kumari’ takes three and a half hours to cover this distance.
Future generation of sophisticated and knowledgeable Sri Lankans are bound to switch over to train travel and will demand much faster mobility between cities. For example,
if Colombo Jaffna (304 km) travelling can be completed within two hours, instead of present eight hours, there will be lot of economic and social benefits to the country including communal harmony through better interaction. Such speedy travel can only be achieved by rail road or costly air travel, not by motor road vehicles.
However, the capital cost of introducing a High-Speed Railway (HSR) project is very high. The cost structure is mainly divided into costs associated to the infrastructure, and the ones associated with the rolling stock. While infrastructure costs include investments in construction and maintenance of the railroad, the cost of acquisition, operation and maintenance of rolling stock is determined by its technical specifications. SLR engineers and other experts should work out specification suitable for Sri Lanka.
It is necessary for SLR official to take into account the impact on wildlife when planning high-speed train track which British planners had not taken into account during colonial period. As a result, many elephants collide with fast moving trains and perish. According to the Department of Wildlife figures, 15 elephants were killed by trains in 2018, almost more than double the previous year (Mark Saunokonoko – 07 Jan., 2019.) It may be possible for trains to run on cement pillars where the elephant corridors are located.
Taking into consideration the distance from Colombo to Beliatta (158km), Jaffna (304 km) and Kandy (120km) SLR should plan for a total distance of 582 km of high-speed train service. A ballpark figure extrapolated on the basis of Copenhagen–Ringsted line construction, the total cost would be approximately US$ 18 billion. If planned for 20 years this is an average investment of about US$ 900 million per year. The government could approach funding agencies such as the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB),, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) funding of the project and to carry out a feasibility study.
The implementation of this project depends on the development of the energy sector. Best option is the development of solar power which can provide free electricity to all, according to renowned Sri Lankan scientist, Prof. Ravi Silva, Director, Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey, who was awarded a CBE for his services to Science, Education and Research. (Reference below)
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is also keen to attract large scale investments in renewable energy, particularly in solar, wind and biomass, over the coming decades.
One may ask whether a country facing economic problems and borrowing crisis should embark on a project of this nature. The answer is in the affirmative. As Asia is expected to rebound faster compared to other regions after the global recession and the pandemic, Sri Lanka has an opportunity to attract investment in the long term. But such investment should be futuristic and in projects that have a greater payoff in the future. The ‘Mahawali Project’ was to be completed in 35 years, but it was telescoped into five years. Similarly, the speed-train project should be a national policy long-term plan, and depending on the economy can be accelerated.
The development of high-speed train does not mean that the government and the Road Development Authority should abandon the development plan of the High Mobility Network or construction of Expressways. It is necessary at present for better connectivity. But a futuristic plan for Sri Lanka Railways should be based on changes taking place, world over.
The implementation of such a modernisation project will help realise the vision of the late B.D. Rampala ‘Travel Safe – Travel Cheap – Travel by Rail’. It will also justify the need to continue with the railway services without heavy subsidies and be a burden on taxpayers’ money.
References;
(Let the Sun Shine: Do not let a photon go to waste without benefit to mankind https://www.timesonline.lk/opinion/let-the-sun-shine-do-not-let-a-photon-go-to-waste-without-benefit-to-mankind/158-1120004 .)
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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