A welcome retreat

Friday 6th August, 2021

Those who opposed the Sir John Kotelawala National Defence University (KNDU) bill are cock-a-hoop about the government’s decision against taking it up for debate in Parliament. They are bragging that they have brought the government to its knees. But it is too early for celebrations. The postponement of the bill, we reckon, is only a tactical retreat; the government is wary of opening another front while struggling to hold coronavirus at bay, and does not want to get overstretched by launching another offensive.

The postponement of the KNDU bill, however, is welcome. The government should have taken this decision when teachers and students began street demonstrations, boosting the transmission of the Delta variant. The protesters, who threw caution to the wind, must have caused numerous infection clusters, and the blame for this situation should be apportioned to the government. Both sides sought to wear each other down, at the expense of the safety of the public.

The reason given for the postponement of the KNDU bill is that more time is needed for it to be discussed further before it is taken up for debate in Parliament. The public tends to take such claims cum grano salis, given the present-day rulers’ history.

The KNDU bill has some provisions that need to be re-examined as it has been pointed out that the proposed defence university is intended to double as a full-fledged civilian university run by the military. The compositions of the Board of Governors and the functional organs of the university lend credence to this claim. If the section in the bill on measures to be adopted to prevent ‘undesirable’ persons from entering the university premises is anything to go by, then the KNDU will be an academic fortress, as it were. Several other aspects of the bill, concerning the academics, national security, courses of study, disciplinary action, admission criteria, etc., require an in-depth study and a public discussion.

The KNDU bill seems to be part of the government’s strategy to circumvent obstacles to its plan to allow private universities, especially fee-levying medical schools to be set up. Mass protests have led to the abolition of two private medical colleges so far. Arguments for and against moves being made to establish fee-paying medical schools are compelling, and public opinion is also divided on the issue, which has become as intractable as the ethnic problem.

Curiously, the KNDU bill is one of the few things that survived the 2019 regime change. The present dispensation, which is all out to undo everything the yahapalana government did or undertook to do, has chosen to carry forward the defence university project, and some of those who supported the previous administration and remained silent on the KNDU bill at the time are now opposing it. This, however, is not the time to examine the merits or demerits of controversial bills, which are likely to spark public protests amidst the worsening health crisis. All such issues can wait until the country beats the virus and revives the ailing economy. The government ought to get its priorities right; it should tread cautiously without inviting trouble so that it can concentrate on the health and economic fronts.

The opponents of the KNDU bill must postpone their protests, which have become super spreader events. The country needs a truce, however uneasy it may be, between the government and protesters as the pandemic has manifestly taken a turn for the worse. What was feared, a few moons ago, is now playing out. Hospitals are overflowing with Covid-19 patients, and many of those who need high-flow oxygen are lying under beds or in corridors of hospital wards packed to the rafters; these scenes remind us of the tragic situation in India during the height of the pandemic. The death toll from Covid-19 is increasing, here, and mass burials and funeral pyres in public parks will be there before long unless everyone makes a determined effort to curb the spread of the pandemic.