Detox: political economy and practicalities

Vegetables grown at Mihimandala in Welikandagama are free of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals [see Dr Prasanna Cooray's article 'Overcoming the challenges of organic farming'

 

The final challenge, so it is said, faced by the Ascetic Siddhartha prior to Enlightenment was an encounter with Mara. Mara confronted Siddhartha in his, Siddartha’s own image. Bernado Bertolucci offers an excellent visual rendition in his 1993 movie ‘Little Buddha.’ If it is taken as a metaphor, then the true ‘enemy’ however you want to define ‘enemy’ is within. True enemy, or ultimate enemy, if you will. It’s a parable with innumerable application, spiritual and otherwise.

We are talking about contamination. About poisons and poisoning. About extirpation. About agriculture. There’s a problem within, an enemy if you will. As in the case of the Ascetic Siddhartha, there is a ‘without’ in addition to ‘within.’ After all the senses are bombarded from outside; it’s the shards that cut into flesh, take up residence and send the poisons along blood streams.

Let me mention two statements which say something about the ‘without.’ An FAO representative, way back when, once infamously said ‘we will not rest until the last buffalo in Sri Lanka is sent to the Dehiwala Zoo.’ He was applauded by an audience that had more or less bought the modernization mantra. Then, almost thirty years ago, the then US Ambassador Teresita Schaffer said ‘your food security lies in the wheat fields of North America.’ Applauded again, this time by those who had memorized the market mantra.

Of course there is a political economic context in which policies are made/pushed. Officially, it is accepted and the blame can then be pinned on those accepting, never mind the arm-twisting, not forgetting of course that much of it is embraced enthusiastically simply because certain mantras are adequately internalized.

All this is relevant when it comes to a re-greening, if you will, of Sri Lanka. We are a poisoned land and it’s not only in the soil that the toxins have taken up residence. This is why we hear many people scream ‘cannot be done!’ They will ask lots of questions such as the following.

‘When yields drop, how will we feed the people? How will we compensate the farmer for drop in income? Do we have enough organic fertilizers, pesticides (or pest-control methods)? How about weeds? Has enough research been done? Do we have adequate seeds? What about export crops? How much of it is organic? Is there a mechanism to certify organic crops if we go for chemical-free production, even if we assume that we can get a premium price to off-set yield-loss? Do we have the extension mechanism to offer training to the cultivators? How about the existing food culture?

Legitimate questions. The good thing is that today we have a discussion on the subject. And so, we can talk of the doable. We can talk of what we had, what we embraced (uncritically or perniciously), what we have etc. Then we can talk of destinations, how to reach them and when.  

It requires of course a serious and deep exercise in self-reflection, as individuals (producers, consumers, policy-makers, academics, traders etc) and as a national collective. What we eat says a lot about who we are or rather who we have become. What we say reflects the ideological predilections we’ve cultivated as individuals and as a nation, knowingly or unknowingly.

Some ‘experts’ may say ‘no can do.’  Perhaps this is because they know no better. We have many universities and many courses related to agriculture, for example, but how many are framed by received ‘wisdom’ about what’s best? Didn’t we, after all, swallow hook, line and sinker the Green Revolution lies? Didn’t we buy the lie about coconut oil being harmful to health? We are taught classical (sic) economics in our Economics Departments. We are told there’s a think called Marxist economics, but that’s about it. There are dominant paradigms of development. There are dominant theories. They are not ideology free.

For example, isn’t it true that our experts are fixated with the yield-mantra? They know there’s something called nutritional-density but their focus is on yield-density. Has anyone asked why?  Those who talk of food culture don’t ask how it came about.

On the flip side there are those who talk as though things can be done overnight. They believe we can shift to traditional food plants, produce adequate quantities which the consumers will immediately delight in.

What’s missing is the fact that the doable is somewhere between the extremes. What’s important to understand is that it is not just the soils that are contaminated. It’s the minds, the mind-sets, the institutional arrangements too.

That said, it’s a place we can and should get to. The road may be long, but it’s got to be taken. However, if we are to walk through a mine-field we better be prepared for accidents. We better have mine-detectors. And talking of mines, we could recall how the war against terrorism was won. It took planning. It took preparation. Hardware and software were lacking. Political will was lacking. Human Resources were lacking. We got those pieces in place. This was a non-negotiable. Those who fought the war know this. Those who studied how things unfolded over thirty years, know what went wrong, what could go wrong and what needed to be done to get things right.

Policy-making is quite a distance from sloganeering. There’s nothing wrong in the vision here. The mission is clear. We can build a splendid agricultural palace but we need a solid foundation. That foundation involves solid research that covers a wide range of disciplines related to all aspects cultivation, preservation, transportation and consumerism.

The good thing is that all relevant agencies have had to wake up. Everyone has been challenged, the people included. The choice is simple: do we remain toxic or do we detox our bodies, minds and our nation? If we have to live with chemicals (as the case very well could be) just like we have to, according to some, live with Covid19, we have to figure out what the safe levels are. Living with Covid19 is not about letting the virus do its worst and us doing nothing. It’s the same with chemicals related to Agriculture. Bottom line: emotion should not trump reason. Another bottom line: research must trump rhetoric. And here’s a non-negotiable: we have to fight this war. War has been declared now. It is best to go about it with eyes wide open.  In the battle against terrorism, much work was done to get the people on the side of that particular policy option. It made a difference. It could make a difference here too. It will obviously take time. Haste will not just make waste but could wreck things so much that the toxic enemy will move in with renewed vigor. That could set us back by many years. Vision is good. Drive is imperative. Knowledge is the best cartographer and without a good map-maker, it goes without saying, we could get lost.

malindasenevi@gmail.com

[Malinda Seneviratne is the Director/CEO of the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute. These are his personal views]

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Covid-19 surge as an opportunity to re-calibrate

 

Lockdown. Isolation. Quarantine. Wave. Social. Spread. Cluster. These are not new words. They are however words that have acquired fresh currency courtesy Covid-19. And, as often happens, when used frequently, they lost meaning or rather they are treated with (cultivated) nonchalance.

That’s as far as the general public is concerned. Meaning, all those who are not directly involved in designing policies and developing strategies to prevent or curb the spread of the virus, enforcing safety protocols and of course treating the infected. Yes, from Day One we were told that every single citizen has a responsibility. Indeed such communications were relayed not just through state media but private media institutions, social media and through innumerable notices. We saw them all. We heard them all. We continued to see and hear. We still do. Therefore, if there’s virtue in soul-searching then that’s a national exercise which neither government, opposition, institution (private, public or cooperative) nor individual can brush aside saying ‘not my/our business.’ We can ask, ‘where did we go wrong?’ We can ask ‘where did they (say, the government) go wrong?’ 

We can also ask, ‘where did I go wrong?’ The yet-to-be-infected or say the non-infected can say/think ‘well, I must have done something right,’ but then again if such an individual violated the basic safety measure of avoiding crowded places he/she would have unknowingly contributed to increasing people-density in certain places (say a shopping complex, a supermarket, a party or religious gathering). You add yourself and you make it that much harder to maintain social distance protocols. 

That’s one way of playing the blame game. There’s another. You turn your binoculars on the government. It’s fair enough. It’s the state authorities that have to design policy and enforce rules. So we can ask a lot of questions.Did they become paranoid too soon (March to June, 2020)? Did they become complacent thereafter? Didn’t they anticipate a second and third wave? Were they foolhardy in opening the country to tourists? Did they go overboard or were too indulgent with the so-called magic remedies? Have they done enough in terms of preparing for the unforeseen? Was testing done in a systematic way? Did they select and procure the correct complement of vaccines and in adequate quantities? Were they administered prudently? Were preparations for a surge in infections adequate? Then there are questions that are not asked or are not shouted out. Is there some kind of fail safe formula to balance containment with the need to keep the economy moving? Can Sri Lanka afford an extended or comprehensive lockdown? What would you/I say if for instance such measures were put in place? Would we then whine about the economy grinding to a halt? Would you/I keep our mouths shut if businesses large and small were forced to shut down or lay off employees? Would you/I not lament the plight of the poor(er) employees?

Have we studied adequately the political economy of pharmaceuticals, including vaccines (procurement of raw materials, production and distribution)? If someone told me/you that the USA used its Defense Production Act to ban exports of the materials needed to make vaccines to India, resulting in a 50% drop in production, would I/you believe it and conclude that vaccination is not free of politics, free of the profit-motive?It’s all about how easy we want to make it for ourselves, isn’t it? It has something to do with political preference hasn’t it? In the early days of the pandemic there was fear and foreboding. Even paranoia. Things got better and people were less paranoid. The recent surge in infections has produced a hike in worry. People are frustrated. They need someone to target. Anyone. Anyone but themselves. They want everyone (else) to do their bit and the government to do much more than it can hope to, but many are reluctant to do their bit. It’s easy to vent and ‘someone else’ is always a better target. We are not rich in self-reflection. We are poor when it comes to responsibility. In the early days there was a sense of siege. 

Fear made people think of coping mechanisms at all levels. Maybe we will return to all that. Maybe the government will figure out a way to allocate resources prudently and design better balancing systems (of pandemic response and an acceptable/reasonable level of basic economic and social activity).Speculation, however, can only help so much. It is clear that a concerted effort by one and all would help. Criticism has a role to play in all this. If it is constructive. If it is motivated by decent intention. For example, a year ago, an opposition in disarray ranted and raved about ‘risks’ when elections were to be held. When the second wave hit us a couple of months later, some people got into we-told-you-so gloating mode. Obviously they knew very little about the behavior of the virus and cared even less. What does tomorrow hold? Can anyone answer? What should be done? What should not be done? Talk to 10 people. Make that eight persons who have an axe to grind about this government. They won’t speak ‘in one voice’. Talk to ten ‘experts’. Same effect, I would wager. Everyone is a self-appointed epidemiologist these days. Everyone is an expert on balancing pandemic-mitigation and managing the economy. Everyone is more or less in the dark and if you doubt this, check out the various measures put in place by various governments and how these strategies have been amended over the past 18 months or so. 

There’s a lot that a lot of people can do. There are some basic things that an individual can do. Perhaps it might be useful to go back to one of the rules-of-thumb that did the rounds in the early days of the pandemic: assume that you are infected (rather than assuming someone else is infected). Assume also, if you like, that the virus is in your face, so to speak. That might bring those who prefer to loaf in ethereal regions back to earth.

It’s about doing what we can. It’s about doing no harm. Dialing down anger. Being kind. Restrictions of any kind provide one thing: the space for sober reflection. Not a bad thing. It could even be seen as a blessing, an opportunity to re-calibrate a lot of things, not just the response to the virus.

malindasenevi@gmail.com.

[Malinda Seneviratne is the Director/CEO of the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute. These are his personal views]

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India's 'love'

 

Subramanyam Jaishankar, India’s External Affairs Minister, being a politician has made a political statement. He would know, as any Indian politician would, the temper of the Indian voter. Moreover, since he’s a senior minister of the current Government, he is probably conscious of the different aspirations of different constituencies. In addition, since this is his subject, he is required to answer all queries related to foreign relations.

India has relations with Sri Lanka. There’s an Indian Mission in Colombo and Sri Lanka has one in Delhi. And therefore, it is not unacceptable for any Indian to ask any question related to Indo-Lanka relations. Maybe this is why M. Thambi Durai, an AIADMK Member of Parliament, had raised a question about Sri Lankan Tamils and why Jaishankar has written to him.

If it’s all about Indian politics and intricacies thereof, we could leave it at that. However, Jaishankar has talked of what Sri Lanka should do. Therefore it’s spilled out of the local political matrix. It’s not Thambi Durai’s business and it’s not Jaishankar’s business. 

Jaishankar is smart though. He’s dragged the International Community into the picture. He says that India ‘Supports the call of the International Community for the Sri Lankan Government to fulfil its commitments on devolution of political authority including the early holding of elections to Provincial Councils.’

Yes, the International Community, one could argue, has made such a call. The wording is certainly there in the resolution recently passed at the 46th session of the Human Rights Council. It is however a resolution prompted by a need to vexatiously prosecute Sri Lanka.

It was an exercise orchestrated by rogue States, in the sense that the big guns (Deliberate choice of words here) the UK, Germany and France refused to support Resolution 72/157 at the UN’s General Assembly in 2017, a move that called for ‘concrete action for the total elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and the comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.

It’s useful though. It’s useful for the likes of meddling countries (Regional bullies, should we call them?) such as India. Useful for the likes of Jaishankar.

On the other hand, Jaishankar (Like this so-called ‘International Community’) has a point. Sri Lanka has made commitments on devolution.

That’s partly because certain Governments made certain pledges which are antithetical to national interest or went along with certain directives from bullies for reasons of convenience (To get out of the heat), timidity and outright political idiocy.

Jaishankar has a point because Provincial Councils are part of the Constitution, never mind that they were brought about by Indian skullduggery and the UNP’s signature penchant for genuflection before powerful nations. He has a point because all major (and even minor) political parties have affirmed such skulduggery by contesting Provincial Council elections.

Interestingly, though, this very same International Community maintained a deafening silence when the previous Government was in power and repeatedly postponed Provincial Council elections. 

We don’t know if the likes of Durai were concerned about such things back then. Delhi certainly makes the occasional noise about devolution, although calling for elections hasn’t been as insistent. Delhi, as the key pusher (A generous term, by the way) for the 13th Amendment, has a stake one could argue.

On the other hand, having reneged on the Indo-Lanka Accord which gave birth to the 13th Amendment, India has effectively abdicated the right to be ‘concerned.’

Sri Lanka ended up delivering India’s side of the bargain (Disarming the LTTE or eliminating terrorism if you want to put it in stark/true terms) and India got what it had always wanted, a big-brother constitutional guarantee to interfere.

Jaishankar has bragged (to Durai) that India urges Sri Lanka to ‘forward the process of reconciliation, address the aspirations of the Tamil community and continue to engage constructively with the international community.’

He’s talked of India’s statement at the HRC’s interactive debate outlining this position. He has also assured Durai that ‘all efforts are being made to ensure that the safety and interests of Tamils in Sri Lanka are fully safeguarded.’

All this is rich, coming from a minister in a country that armed, trained and funded terrorists and precipitated a bloody insurrection which was bound to compromise severely the safety and interests of everyone in Sri Lanka, Tamils included.

It’s rich considering that India has its own tumours to deal with. It’s rich considering that India, located itself geopolitically with countries guilty of the worst butchery in recent history by refusing to stand with Sri Lanka. In other words, India stands in opposition to Sri Lanka. Such a country’s ‘interest’ has to be read as belligerent and unfriendly.

India, Jaishankar claims, has ‘an abiding commitment to aspirations of the Tamils of Sri Lanka for equality, justice, peace and dignity.’ India doesn’t have such commitment to certain communities living in India, as implied above. 

India can have commitments to the aspirations of anyone anywhere in the world. India can have commitments to biodiversity, gender equality, sustainable development and chemical-free lifestyles in India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Kentucky or even Jupiter. However, India does not have any right to tell Sri Lanka what to do.

On the other hand, every individual in Sri Lanka has a legitimate right to equality, justice, peace and dignity. Whether such things are obtained or obtainable via Provincial Council elections, however, is another matter. 

The truth is that Provincial Council elections haven’t been held in years. The truth is that this has not prompted anyone, not even the most ardent devolutionists (Tamil nationalists included), to utter one word of protest. The truth is that Provincial Councils are not just white elephants, they are ‘solutions’ to mis-articulated and even highly exaggerated ‘problems.’

We needn’t go into all that. Considering that it’s part of the Constitution, there’s nothing wrong with holding elections. Stupid, but legit, let’s say.

It seems, also, that major political parties are readying for Provincial Council elections. Obviously for narrow political reasons that have little or nothing to do with affirming equality, justice, peace and dignity, one might add.The problem is that we are also in the middle of an exercise to formulate a new Constitution. Now suppose the drafters, having (as one would expect) made a careful study of the existing constitution noting its strengths, weaknesses and the elements in it that were pushed through illegally (like the 13th Amendment), came up with a draft that significantly amends the 13th Amendment or even repeals it? What then?

Those who for whatever reasons want Provincial Councils can petition the Supreme Court to keep the 13th as is because ‘after all, it’s been endorsed by the very fact that elections were held and people have voted’ (note: people do not always vote thinking of equality, justice, peace and dignity a la the nonsensical logic for the 13th). What then? They would have a point.

The SC could very well uphold the point. There would be an elephant in the room that no one can ignore. A wild, stupid and white elephant. We can do without that kind of human-elephant co-existence.
 

malindasenevi@gmail.com. 

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