WHO'S AFRAID OF MARXISTS NEXT DOOR?

The worry about the new Lankan govt's leftist tilt may be overblown. It's likely to be guided by those offering a friendly hand out of its economic morass

- MK BHADRAKUMAR

ON Sunday, the Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha called on Sri Lanka's president-elect Anura Kumara Dissanayake to convey greetings from Prime Minister Narendra Modi no sooner than the election result emerged. Dissanayake was yet to be sworn in. Another country to congratulate Dissanayake real-time was the US. These were, no doubt, exceptional gestures. Chinese President Xi Jinping's message came a day later, after Dissanayake was sworn in on Monday, as per protocols.

Apparently, neither New Delhi nor Washington was taken by surprise at Dissanayake's victory. In a post on X, Jha called Sri Lanka with élan as India's "civilisational twin". Greetings also poured in from the Indian opposition, including Rahul Gandhi and the CPI(M). The latter hailed Dissanayake's election victory as a historic event.

Running such a fine comb through another country's democratic election process is most certainly unwarranted, but it has become necessary because there is such a lot of angst being expressed that Dissanayake is 'pro-China', that the National People's Power coalition he leads is a Marxist alliance, that his party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna has an 'anti-Indian' pedigree, and so on-none of which is wholly incorrect, of course. But simplistic notions betray a lack of awareness about the nuanced politics of Sri Lanka.

Dissanayake's victory calls attention to the grim reality that Sri Lanka's deep economic crisis continues to devastate lives. Much of the optimism generated by the youth-led movement known as the Aragalaya ('struggle' in Sinhala) two years ago that toppled the ancient regime of the Rajapaksas a decadent political and social system characterised by absolutism, deep-rooted corruption and venality, and state terrorism-has dissipated.