When generosity leads to trouble

Saturday 11th September, 2021

The incumbent government undertook to ensure that the law of the land would apply equally to all citizens. But the quarantine law is being enforced selectively. An elderly person was taken into custody in Jaffna, on Monday, because a large number of people who gathered near his house to receive Rs. 2,000 each from him did not follow the health regulations. People behave in a similar manner elsewhere as well when they collect money distributed by the government as pandemic relief, but nobody is taken into custody. What the health officials and the police should have done in Jaffna was to facilitate the distribution of cash by controlling the crowd instead of taking action against the Good Samaritan. We are reminded of King Kekille’s court. (Legendary Kekille always rushed to the wrong conclusions in hearing cases, punished the innocent and set the guilty party free.)

Philanthropists like the Jaffna man and his son, who is reported to have sent funds to the tune of Rs. 20 million, from overseas, for distribution among the poor families in the area at the rate of Rs. 2,000 each, deserve praise and worthy of emulation. They have come forward to help fellow citizens in these troubled times unlike the conscienceless wealthy Sri Lankans who fleece pandemic victims by jacking up prices of food items, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and private hospital charges. How low they are prepared to stoop in profiteering has become evident from the sheer amounts of goods hoarded in their warehouses. If the super-rich in this country parted with a fraction of their wealth as pandemic relief, the poor would not hit the sack on empty stomachs.

The funeral of a wealthy gem businessman was held, the other day, amidst a large gathering that included government and Opposition politicians, but nobody got arrested for violating the quarantine law. Is it that in the government’s book, all are equal before the law but the wealthy are ‘more equal than others’? When a conman called Dhammika Bandara sold a herbal syrup, some months ago, touting it as a cure for Covid-19, thousands of people converged on a hamlet in Kegalle to buy it, but the police did not swoop on the culprit, who had government backing.

Those who masterminded the Treasury bond racket and the sugar tax scam under the previous government and the current dispensation respectively and caused losses amounting to billions of rupees to the state coffers have gone scot-free. No serious effort has been made to bring back former Central Bank Governor Arjun Mahendran from Singapore to stand trial over the bond racket, and the sugar tax scam has gone uninvestigated. The government and the Opposition seem to think that the two mega rackets have cancelled each other out; they have stopped flogging the issues as if they had reached an understanding thereon. Mahendran was allowed to leave the country, and the police are now colluding with the present government to open escape routes via Hulftsdorp for the ruling party crooks who have stolen public funds. The Attorney General’s Department has withdrawn cases against some lawbreakers much to the dismay of the law-abiding citizens who expected them to be thrown behind bars.

Those who plunder the national wealth are let off the hook while legal action is taken against the kind-hearted people who share part of their wealth with the needy. It is hoped that the police and judicial officials will be lenient in handling the generous souls who may unwittingly violate the health regulations in trying to ameliorate the suffering of fellow citizens. In one of her fabulous songs, Nanda Malini, pointing out the absurdity of that law that punishes the progressive people who are on a mission to change the country for the better, questions the purpose of having a legal system and a judiciary —kumata erata adhikaranaya, neethiya saha vinisuran? One also remembers Mr. Bumble (in Dickens’ Oliver Twist), who says the law is an ass – an idiot.