A country that once had oneof the highest living standards in south Asia is mired in economic crisis

Police use a water cannon to disperse anti-government protesters in Colombo. Many Sri Lankans blame their plight on corruption, nepotism and mismanagement 

Sri Lanka is marking the 75th anniversary of its independence from GreatBritain this year, yet there is little to celebrate — the beautiful island isexperiencing the worst economic crisis in its history.

The country defaulted on morethan $50bn of foreign loans in 2022, and last May the then prime minister RanilWickremesinghe complained that finding even $1mn was proving to be a challenge.Sri Lanka has one of the largest public sectors in the world, which — includingdefence — accounts for between 70-80 per cent of the country’s annual budget.Meeting the salary bill is a battle. The government is in the throes ofnegotiating a $2.9bn IMF bailout, which ministers seem confident will beapproved.

India and others have sentaid, including food and medical supplies, to a population living under constantpressure. A majority of Sri Lanka’s 22mn people live in rural areas and arestruggling to put food on the table. Average earnings are down, inflation isabout 59 per cent, though the government insists it is coming down. The UNwarns of severe undernourishment and rising poverty in a country that onceboasted one of the highest standards of living in south Asia.

To the visitor, the truesituation is initially hard to grasp. Restaurants in the capital Colombo arefull and markets well stocked. Travels around the central mountain region andthe small villages are also deceptive. I gave a tip of $3 to the hotel staffmember who had arranged my room; he burst into tears, mumbling that he neededthe money for his young daughter.

Sri Lankans, renowned forresilience, now just “seethe with anger”, says Sri Lankan Booker Prize winnerShehan Karunatilaka. By last year frustration had reached boiling point.Millions, mostly the young, took to the streets in Colombo and across thecountry. The presidential palace was stormed and the prime minister’s residencetorched. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled to Singapore, from where he resignedby email.

His successor, the politicalveteran Wickremesinghe, is seen as a surrogate for the powerful Rajapaksafamily, which has dominated Sri Lankan politics and business for decades. Whiletourism has certainly been hit hard by Covid, many blame their currentpredicament on endemic and longstanding government corruption, nepotism and economicmismanagement. About 300,000 Sri Lankans left the country in 2022, the highestnumber on record.

If conditions do not improve,new protests could be triggered and may even turn violent. But demonstrating isone of the few ways for Sri Lankans to express their dissatisfaction with thegovernment. The ruling coalition has a strong parliamentary majority andopposition parties are splintered. There are serious restrictions on freedom ofspeech. Staff at News 1st, Sri Lanka’s biggest independent news network, wereseverely beaten by police while covering the protests.

The security forces andmilitary still enjoy a prominent role in society and their numbers aredisproportionately high, a legacy of the civil war between Hindu, Tamilminority separatists and the Buddhist Sinhalese-dominated authorities. Thisbrutal conflict, which began in 1983 and ended in 2009 with the defeat of theTamil Tigers, hangs like a shadow over present day Sri Lanka. Some 100,000 diedor simply disappeared, with little justice for victims and their families.

Can people rise above theseresidual ethnic and religious tensions and coexist as simply Sri Lankans?Protesters from all ethnicities marched together last year, united in theircommon disgust and shared suffering. Perhaps a new, nonsectarian sense ofnationhood could prove the silver lining to this bleak chapter in Sri Lanka’spost-independence history.