India’s Modi Wave And Lanka’s Moda (Foolish) Wave
Shyamon Jayasinghe
Sharp on the heels of the Modi electoral phenomenon that swept mighty India, Sri Lankan leaders from their humble podium have had the guts to add their two cents’ worth. Inasmuch as these imbecilic utterances did not generate serious response from anyone it did add to the unending fodder for comic relief and wind- release that ordinary powerless people in Lanka have been experiencing over the whole period of the current regime: what with the antics of Dr Mervyn, Maranthika Upawasage Wimal Weerawansa, and the High King himself.
Yes, BJP leader Modi won a landslide sending home most of the Congress parliamentarians and their kith and kin; bag and baggage. Indians have such a luxury which we Sri Lankans lost after JR introduced the Executive Presidency and the PR system and Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) executed the Bahubootha Vyawasthawa to its logical end. That logical end has been so bizarre and ugly and dysfunctional that there is massive public demand for reverting to the old system. Modi has ample power to rule sans coalition restrictions. His only real-politic limitation would be Jayalalitha in Tamilnadu who will rule that state with less discretion and more rough muscle. Of course Vaiko is mercifully gone but that is because Jayalalithaa stole the latter’s constituency.
How possibly sinister the combination of a formidable central government and forbidding Tamilnadu could be for our little island has not been detected by the Lankan government. The stage is set for another Rajiv Gandhi-type threat of invasion if Lanka fails to toe the Indian line. Yet our ruling class prefers to see no evil and hear no evil. President Mahinda Rajapaksa went on record stating that it would be easier to deal with the new dispensation in India than it was with the former. Yes, in a sense and no in a stronger sense. Read More
