(March 24, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka Guardian) Among the stories that were reported from Sri Lanka in recent days the case of three-year-old Amila, is perhaps one of the most significant. Except for immediate press coverage of the story in a more sensational manner there were hardly any other reflections.
Amila’s mother had made several attempts to draw the attention of the local government and some charitable organisations to the plight of her five children, particularly the younger ones; at the very least to have them admitted to an orphanage because the family was not longer able to look after them. All her attempts failed and there were no good Samaritans who took notice of the plight of this mother of five. Finally in desperation she threw her youngest child into the Kalu Ganga perhaps expecting to the see the end of the boy’s agony.
This is not a common story. An act of this sort has seldom been reported, if at all in recent times. However, the story does not raise a very great surprise. The stark poverty of the countryside is today no longer a secret. Unfortunately in discussions on Sri Lanka the issue of poverty is only heard by way of political propaganda during elections meetings in order that one party might blame another. Once the political rhetoric is over there is no ongoing reflection on the acute poverty problems faced by a good section of the population in all parts of Sri Lanka.
What kind of meaning do the political debates in the presidential or parliamentary elections have for a family like that of Amila? These political debates do not touch the lives of the people who face this kind of problems. Regardless of whatever politics that go on, the deeper problems of poverty remain unaddressed and the poor families like that of Amila’s have to face these problems on their own. At the end in desperation some tragedy takes place.
Perhaps a dramatized story of Amila is only a revelation of many other tragedies that do not come to the notice of the public. The problems in the north and east in the aftermath of the war are now for the most part forgotten. These areas do not come to the notice of the public. How then are the displaced persons who had been unable to get the support of anyone are coping with the problems of survival? The details of their lives, if reported, would tell a different story about Sri Lanka than what is normally spoken of in the day to day discussions.
It is also the case of the people in these estates. Once again their conditions of stark poverty are not part of the public debate. Neither the ruling regime nor the opposition takes much trouble to state the actual living conditions of the people of the lowest strata of Sri Lankan society. Tens of thousands of women leave their families and go to far off countries to become domestic helpers purely to be able to contribute in some way to the survival of their families. They work in harsh conditions often without any kind of freedoms, enslaving themselves in working for other families and often looking after small children to earn some small amount in order to ensure the survival of their own children, the elders and others in their families who cannot help themselves.
The conditions of the migrant workers have never been much of a public issue discussed in Sri Lanka. The problems they face in other countries as well as the problems faced by their families are not the stuff that is discussed in parliament or even parliamentary elections.
There is a vast unreality in the type of political debates that are heard over the television and the radio regarding presidential or parliamentary elections. In these discussions there is nothing about the type of stark poverty that is experienced by the people in the countryside. There is huge alienation between the country’s poor and the type of political contest that go on in the name of elections. While political factions are fighting for manapaya, (preferential votes) the deeper problems of the people no longer receives any kind of the attention in the public debate.
The tragic death of three-year-old Amila is a stark reminder of the tremendous unreality of the type of political discussion of the country when compared to the life conditions of the vast majority of the nation. While the politicians boast of bringing a golden age to the country, the mothers who are unable to meet the demands of their children face the same situation as that confronted by Amila’s mother. It is easy to condemn the action of a desperate mother that throws her child into a river. However, it is only by trying to understand the type of desperation that leads to that kind of action that the true circumstances of the lives of the poor in Sri Lanka could be understood.
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