Anura Shakthi: Indianisation, rhetoric, zero-development, socioeconomic regression

"...Mazagon's entry into Colombo Port is not merely a commercial bailout - it is a strategic assertion in the Indian Ocean's unfolding power play...' (https://www.ft.lk/ft_view_editorial/India-s-Mazagon-s-acquisition-of-Colombo-Dockyard/58-778549)

- By Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

WHEN Ranasinghe Premadasa ran for the presidency in October 1988, the country was ablaze with two civil wars. His manifesto, 'A New Vision, A New Deal' gave clear details about his proposed program for Poverty alleviation, Janasaviya. Throughout his election campaign in October-December 1988, Premadasa explained the concrete details of Janasaviya from every platform.

Once elected, Premadasa commenced Janasaviya Round One, in the heartland of the JVP's bloody uprising, Hambantota, in the throes of armed conflict.

By contrast, it was only this month, July 2025, that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake announced a program to reduce rural poverty, Prajashakthi. It took him 9 months. I watched his speech on TV and read it in this newspaper and still cannot figure a single detail, a single concrete measure he hopes to take to reduce rural poverty.

His speech was only a sermon, not a rollout of a concrete plan and program, unlike Janasaviya --or even Sajith Premadasa's 'Husma' and 'Sakvala'. There are no criteria of identifying recipients, no pledge as to what or how much will be transferred, no geographic identifications, no timelines. We don't know what it is, how it works, when and where. So far, there is no tangible content. It is typically vacuous rhetoric. (https://www.ft.lk/top-story/President-launches-Prajashakthi-national-program/26-778629)

Not UK Labour

The electoral base of the UK Labour government was saved by a rebellion by Labour parliamentarians against an important economic policy of budgetary number-crunching welfare cuts by Labour leader and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. The policy, if implemented, would have meant a huge hit on disability payments and eroded the Labour Government's popularity.