Body swapping?

Friday 25th November, 2022

Television is very educational, Groucho Marx has famously said, adding that every time somebody turns it on, he goes into another room and reads a book. Parliamentary sessions are also educational in that sense; whenever they are telecast, one’s gorge rises and one swiftly switches off the tube and reads a book. But the telecast of President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s speech in the House on Wednesday (23) was different; it reminded us of a nineteenth century book, of all things—Vice Versa by F Anstey (pseudonym used by Thomas Anstey Guthrie). It is about body swapping—two persons exchanging minds and living in each other’s bodies—which is a common trope in sci-fi books and flicks. Politics and shape-shifting go together, but what has body swapping got to do with politicians?

On listening to President Wickremesinghe, who was going ballistic in the House, one wondered if he and his immediate predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had swapped bodies, for the former sounded just like the latter. Most of all, Wickremesinghe called himself Hitler, albeit tongue in cheek. It was Gotabaya who was expected to be a dictator like Hitler after being elected President. Basil Rajapaksa himself likened his elder brother, Gotabaya, to ‘Terminator’ before the last presidential election, and some prominent Buddhist monks said the country needed a leader like Hitler, and Gotabaya fitted the bill.

The UNP and other Opposition parties also described Gotabaya as Sri Lanka’s Hitler and warned that he would rule the country with an iron fist, if elected, but curiously he did what was expected of Ranil, who was considered a weak leader. Ranil is now doing what Gotabaya was expected to do!

Gotabaya, a former frontline combat officer, played a crucial role in defeating the LTTE, and stood accused of deploying the army to crush a protest against a factory which caused groundwater pollution at Rathupaswala, in 2013, but he meekly allowed anti-government protesters to march on the President’s House, and fled the country, a few moons ago. Ranil, who was wary of opening his mouth even for a dental examination while the LTTE was around, has made short work of the anti-government protesters who ousted Gotabaya, and warned that he will crush all protests aimed at engineering a regime change. How come such transformations are possible? Isn’t it natural that one wonders whether something similar to what one sees in Richard Morgan’s cyberpunk Altered Carbon series with a dystopian futuristic setting where consciousness is digitised and transferred between persons, has happened in this country with Gotabaya and Ranil swapping bodies?

Meanwhile, President Wickremesinghe’s declaration in Parliament that he will not allow any protests to be held at all unless the organisers thereof obtain permission from the police for such events is proof that the government is ready to go to any extent to retain its hold on power. He might as well slap a blanket ban on protests, for there is no way anyone could obtain permission from the police for an anti-government demonstration. The police offer their services as bouncers to the powers that be. The current administration is the outcome of a political marriage of convenience between the UNP, which has a history of crushing democratic dissent, and the SLPP led by the Rajapaksa family, which has got attacking democracy down to a fine art. It goes without saying that democracy is in grave danger.

One may recall that during the Premadasa government, a group of journalists covering a DUNF event were attacked by UNP thugs in full view of the police, and when the victims went to the Fort police station to lodge a complaint, the OIC stood his full height blocking the main entrance and declared that the place was closed for the day! When the media asked a servile police spokesman, during the Mahinda Rajapaksa government, why dozens of pro-government thugs armed with clubs had been allowed to operate alongside the police riot squad at an Opposition protest, in Colombo, he had the chutzpah to claim that they had been carrying ‘sticks’ to ward off stray dogs. So much for the impartiality of the police, from whom the President wants the Opposition to seek permission for its protests!

Most of all, Chairman of the National Police Commission (NPC) Chandra Fernando is under fire for his presence at a ceremony the SLPP held recently at the BIA to receive Basil Rajapaksa. He has said he happened to be at the airport when Rajapaksa returned from the US, and met the latter. But the controversy over what he did has cast doubt on the NPC’s credibility and impartiality. A fish is said to rot from the head down.One can only pray for the safety of Sri Lankan democracy or what remains thereof.