{"id":40256,"date":"2015-04-04T19:41:17","date_gmt":"2015-04-04T23:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=40256"},"modified":"2015-04-04T21:25:02","modified_gmt":"2015-04-05T01:25:02","slug":"is-this-the-big-yahapalanaya-of-the-new-maithri-governmentfunnily-enoughyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=40256","title":{"rendered":"“Is This The Big ‘Yahapalanaya’ of the New Maithri Government?” Funnily Enough “Yes”!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Don Manu
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

The recent fiasco concerning the bond scandal has given the anti-Maithri clique a welcome full toss to smash over the pavilion so early in the new innings. Rightly they have accused the Government of making a pig\u2019s breakfast of the Central Bank Governor\u2019s appointment and even taken their protest to the streets. But however great and grave the error, howsoever sour the taste allegations of insider dealings have left in the nation\u2019s mouth, was it justified to have put the concept of \u2018yahapalanaya\u2019 in the stockade and run Maithripala up the gum tree for it?<\/p>\n

Of course it was a heaven sent opportunity to pooh-pooh and ridicule the inspiring vision of Maithripala Sirisena that captured the nation\u2019s imagination and brought about the downfall of the corrupt Rajapaksa regime. It was manna from the sky for a demoralised gang of thieves and for the others who were the recipients of their ill-gotten largesse to refer to the scandal in the city and pronounce in purer than white pious tones: \u201cis this the big \u2018yahapalanaya\u2019 of the new Maithri government?\u201dFunnily enough, yes.
\n
\nBlunders, scandals, corruption, rackets happen even in the best of families. Shady questionable transactions and sleazy insider dealings occur in the money market and will continue to do so in the future, no matter the government. Ministers will make mistakes, may even commit corrupt acts as some manifestly did under the previous government. The country is not one brimming with arahaths or sainted vas\u2019ses. The mere fact that there has been an instance of a manifest blunder of considerable magnitude is not in itself a reflection of yahapalanaya, as some have taken it to be and use it as a weapon to attack the new dawned government.<\/p>\n

The test of yahapalanaya is how a government reacts when it blunders; or when corrupt acts are brought to light. It is how a government rises to the occasion and how it responds that determines whether yahapalanaya or good governance exists or whether it is a sham. It is then that the mocking can start, the condemnation can begin, and not before.<\/p>\n

After the bond scandal broke, there was no cover up. No attempt to stop the free flow of news. No attempt to stop the protests, even the marches to what was once a high security zone where even a dog strayed only at it its own peril. And the marches were led by none other than the Parliamentary leader of the SLFP of which President Sirisena is the chairman. Would all this have been possible under the Rajapaksa regime? Would any have pursued the scandal in open print for fear of inviting white vans to their front door? Would any have dared to take to the streets, dared to vilify the Rajapaksa regime and dared to taste the Rajapaksa wrath?<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has since appointed a committee to probe the bond scandal. The Governor of the Central Bank has been sent on leave. And today Parliament awaits the inquiry report to decide what to do next? So far, so good. The entire affair has upto now been handled as the practice of good governance or yahapalanaya dictates, with promptness and with transparency. What a far cry from the way the previous regime handled the hedging issue three years ago which cost the country billions of rupees, a proper and determined inquiry into which has only now commenced. However if there is any attempt to sweep the bond affair under the carpet, then the Government\u2019s practice of good governance must be put in the dock and flayed.<\/p>\n

The best police force in the world cannot prevent the killing of a man and the gang rape of a foreign girl at a Tangalle hotel. The Rajapaksa regime cannot be blamed for the tragic occurrence. But what warranted condemnation was the blatant cover-up that ensued, the political influence that was used to enable the killers and the rapists to roam free the broad acres of the land as sacred political beasts, until two years later, it took a visiting British Prime Minister to exert enough pressure on the Rajapaksa Government to bring them to trial. A government committed to the establishment of law and order cannot be blamed for an axe murder, even when the victim happens to be the President\u2019s own brother. Every human weakness, each folly, each criminal act cannot be left at the Government\u2019s door. It is in the manner a government responds, whether it permits investigations to be carried out independently, that reveals the mettle of its good governance testament.<\/p>\n

Yahapalanaya does not, cannot and must not come to mean a weak government that shirks from discharging its paramount duty to maintain law and order on the streets. It does not mean an effeminate form of rule that watches apathetically while anarchy spills out onto the roads. Much is made of the tear gas attack on a students\u2019 protest near Temple Trees on Wednesday. If the police had gone over the top and used excessive force then it should be probed and the report published with corrective measures taken. That is the stuff of Good Government. The Mahinda camp who denounce it as an example of yahapalanaya in action, now pretend as if the Rajapaksa regime treated protesters with kid gloves and sent them home with tea and cupcakes or that the armed forces were deplored and ordered to sprinkle water on thirsty souls instead of spraying bullets at Rathupaswala when villagers protested over companies which were discharging their effluence to the ground and contaminating their water wells, leaving them bereft of clean drinking water.<\/p>\n

Yahapalanaya is governance dedicated to the ideals of democracy. It is not an \u2018anything goes\u2019 form of governance where each is allowed to act as he wishes with scant regard to the principle that one\u2019s freedom stops at the end of another\u2019s nose. It is government that functions within the well-established framework of law, where everyone is held equal, which guarantees redress if and when one\u2019s fundamental freedoms are infringed by the state. It is one that operates with transparency, one that is accountable to the people. It is also the one the people voted to be governed by at the last election three months ago and it behoves us all to protect the fledgling as it seeks space and time to mature.<\/p>\n

Today there is a concerted campaign to bring the concept of Yahapalanaya into disrepute by those who seek the leaky shelter of the Rajapaksa umbrella. They crave the Yamapalanaya practised by the former regime during which dark era they, shielded by political immunity, could commit fraud on the people with impunity. They now seek the return of Mahinda Rajapaksa, conjure up a sham image to create the illusion that the rest of the country also want him back in the saddle \u2014 three months after rejecting him \u2014 not because they love him but because they know he will protect them from the present crackdown on the corruption even as he has urged in a letter sent to the new SLFP secretary on February 16: \u201cThe SLFP as a party should always be there to protect the party and its members whenever they are under threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that they have become desperate was revealed on Thursday when a group of UPFA MPs even went to the extent of attempting to tar the good image of the newly appointed Bribery Commission Director General Dilrukshi Dias by filing a petition against her at her office. The nature of the charge reveals the degree of their desperation. They claimed that thirteen years ago she had, whilst working at the Attorney General\u2019s Department, also worked at the Telecommunications Regulations Commission as a consultant and drawn two salaries from 2002 to 2008. On Friday she categorically denied the charge and requested the Commission\u2019s Chairman Justice Jagath Balapatabendi to conduct a full-scale probe into her actions. She said that the baseless and frivolous allegations were made to demoralise her and prevent her from fighting corruption.<\/p>\n

To take a hypothetical example, even if a person had worked at the AG\u2019s office and had simultaneously worked at the Telecommunications Regulations Commission as a consultant and drawn two salaries for the work one had done, does it tantamount to a grievous criminal offence, a heinous moral crime? If it does, then into what bracket do you place the plunder of the nation\u2019s coffers to the tune of 5.6 billion dollars the Government claims the Rajapaksa regime siphoned off from the Treasury?<\/p>\n

It is to end that dark period when SLFP Public Relations Minister Mervyn Silva could boldly say on national television, \u201cWhy can\u2019t my son have an expensive sports car? If I want to I will buy him a helicopter. It is nobody\u2019s business. Don\u2019t forget that we have a family business\u201d: or SLFP Sports Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage could brashly declare at a public meeting last year, \u201cThe Government is ours, the army is ours, the police are ours, therefore it is according to what we want that this election is conducted\u201d that the nation voted for Maithripala to usher in Yahapalanaya.<\/p>\n

Now that the nation has emerged from the sewers to which it had been condemned, it will be the tragedy of our times if we do not use this opportunity to strengthen the pillars of democracy and see it flourish once more. Yahapalanaya is not a way of governance that can be wished into existence by the single swish of a magic wand held by Maithripala Sirisena alone but one that must be embraced by the people after understating its full import and the practical benefit it brings to the quality of a nation\u2019s life. It has to be earned. It has to be deserved. It has to be appreciated and cherished. It must be safeguarded. It is not for nothing that founders of American democracy have declared so oft: \u2018Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.\u2019<\/p>\n

The question is whether the people of this country are going to stand idle and watch with indifference while the swine attempt to crush the pearl it does not value or smother to death with mockery and ridicule and then cook the nation\u2019s goose even before it had laid its first gilded egg? The choice is yours: Return to the old Yamapalanaya past or live the new Yahapalanaya future.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:Sunday Times<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Don Manu The recent fiasco concerning the bond scandal has given the anti-Maithri clique a welcome full toss to smash over the pavilion so early in the new innings. Rightly they have accused the Government of making a pig\u2019s breakfast of the Central Bank Governor\u2019s appointment and even taken their protest to the streets. …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘“Is This The Big ‘Yahapalanaya’ of the New Maithri Government?” Funnily Enough “Yes”!’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40256"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40264,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40256\/revisions\/40264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}