Progress – Towards What? For Whom?

By Sarath De Alwis –November 17, 2015

Sarath de Alwis

“People are tired of what they have gone through – they seek genuine, real time change. That’s why they elected us to power – to make that anticipated change a reality. They believe that we can make changes for the better and through social economic modifications, we can make their lives better.” – Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe – 5th November 2015

Ninety one years earlier in 1924 , Rabindranath Tagore in a lecture on civilization and progress told his audience “We have for over a century been dragged by the prosperous West behind its chariot, choked by the dust, deafened by the noise, humbled by our own helplessness, and overwhelmed by the speed. We agreed to acknowledge that this chariot-drive was progress, and the progress was civilisation. If we ever ventured to ask, ‘progress towards what, and progress for whom’, it was considered to be peculiarly and ridiculously oriental to entertain such ideas about the absoluteness of progress. Of late a voice has come to us to take count not only of the scientific perfection of the chariot but the depth of the ditches lying on its path.” That was in 1924.

Can we say today that a new voice came to us on 8th January 2015? So we thought. So we continue to think. So we continue to hope. Please read my story.

This happened on Monday 16th November, nine months after the success of the National Movement for a Just Society made a former Minister of Health our new President. This story is about health care provided by the state.

It was the prescriptions processing counter of the busiest Pharmacy located in the vicinity of the Colombo’s general hospital around Lipton’s circus.

She was past seventy. Her wrinkled face mirrored her suffering. She was confused. She was broken. She was resolutely lonely in the maddening confusion where everyone was anxious to finish their business. That was forgivable. No one visits a pharmacy on a Monday around noon unless it was unavoidable.

There she was holding a cellophane bag full of papers, thrusting a tiny piece of paper at the girl behind the counter. The young Pharmacy staffer was kind, patient but firm. “No you cannot just get three strips. You have to get a pack of twenty five. May be when you go back to the hospital there will be others who may want it. So you can sell them the other pieces.”                              Read More