Call of the Voice of Democracy

We are now in a Lockdown. It has been the most common and interesting word in the social and political vocabulary in the past few days.

Before this much unwanted lockdown of the Saubhagya Rajapaksa Regije of today, there was also what was called a Cabinet reshuffle. It was certainly a shuffle of the largely useless, misguided and incorrect political names, who comprise the huge majority of the Pohottuva Government. All but one of them, Dallas Alahapperuma excluded, make a bag of political nonsense that burdens the people.

With the Petroleum Corporation saying it has enough fuel for one month, the lockdown may prevent large queues near petrol sheds in the coming days and weeks. It certainly gives some time for the new Minister of Transport, Pavithra Wanniarachchi, to practice using the ‘Dammika Peniya” or any other special local fuel, to make our buses run without any imported fuel.

Will we be waiting till the present Minister of Health, Keheliya Rambukwelle, makes his own study of the people dying each day of the Covid Delta variant, and say there is nothing that can save such “kalakannis”  from necessary death? He certainly has much more to do, than what he never really did as Minister of Mass Media, but all that is about the health of the people. Is the health of the people of any importance to politicians who have been carrying  out a mockery of the need to follow guidelines on good health, and actually prevent the spread of the Delta variant?  Does he also describe as ‘kalakannis’ the people of Kandy who signed a declaration that they needed only one dose of the Covid vaccine?

Dallas Alahapperuma has certainly not been allowed to take measures to improve our supply of energy. His thinking in favour of having better means and goals for energy production would not have impressed the Rajavasala Kavatayas, who now direct this country. As a person who has good familiarity with the media and its needs, one hopes he would be able to be a Media Minister who does not give in to twisting and turning realities, especially in this Covid disaster, and try to serve the real need for information to the public, and not a supply of farcical nonsense that some Task Forces are keen  on putting out.

Namal Rajapakse has also been given more powers or functions, to help him be the next Prime Minister — one more Rajavasala goal.

It is certainly interesting to see how this lockdown really came about. We have the State Minister (Prof) Channa  Jayasumana, saying the President paid heed to the request by the Mahanayake Theras with regard to the lockdown. Let’s thank the Mahanayake Theras of the Malwatte Chapter for making this  call that made the President do what he may not have wanted to do.

The call for this lockdown is certainly an escalation of the democratic process in this country, which has been seriously threatened by the 6.9 million voter support for Gotabaya Rajapaksa, followed by the passage of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution. The call for this lockdown is certainly the widely spread voice of the people. It is the voice  of the masses that went beyond the ban on chemical fertiliser imports. A voice that kept echoing from the paddy cultivators, tea and vegetable growers, who were suffering under the narrow Gota-Saubhagya thinking.

What the Opposition had largely failed to do in Parliament, despite the many calls for sensible handling of the pandemic – such as vaccinations and the supply of face masks, and sufficient facilities in hospitals –  it was left to our traders to become the voice of the people.

As the traders’ associations in so many towns in the country, from the South to the North,  West to East and  Central, decided to close down their shops and other trading places, from tea kiosks to restaurants, the trade voice of Sri Lanka came out  to shatter the deafness of a political leadership, that thought  they could keep playing the flute of discord  and conflict to mislead the people.

This voice of the traders, and then that of the key trade union leaders, certainly made the small Pohottuva catcher parties in the government, including a few Cabinet Ministers, to also call for an extended lockdown. These parties and their leaders must have seen the necessity to be with the people, and not bound down by the politics of the Rajavasala Pavula. This trend became clear when the Mayoress of Colombo, Rosy Senanayake also called for a lockdown of business places in the city.

As the Covid pandemic with its deadly Delta variant has brought this country into a situation of major disaster, not seen or realised by a hugely powerful government, let us hope the voice of the people from the traders, trade unions, professionals, politicians and the Maha Sangha, has given our rulers a message of what governance really means.

Let them begin to understand that there is much more than the power of the Rajapaksa Pavula – five in the Cabinet, and more scrambling outside, that is the need for governance. That the voice of the people is the Voice of Democracy. This lockdown has shown that democracy has put down the power  of a family, forcing them to listen to the Voice of Democracy.