If you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes’s stories, you will remember one of his earliest cases – the first story in his “Adventures” collection – Scandal in Bohemia. In that story, a woman holds letters written by an ex-lover who is a powerful and rich Prince. Holmes tries to steal that letter from her on behalf of the royal to avoid blackmail or bad publicity.
Despite all the efforts, he cannot find where she has kept them hidden. He then uses a powerful psychological weapon – when there is a fire or imminent danger, a person will rush to first save that which is most precious to him or her. For example, a mother may protect her child even before she cares for herself. He engineers a fake fire to force the woman to reveal where she has hidden the letters. He almost succeeds, but the lady is smarter than him and saves those letters, but that’s not the main point of my using this example. It is about Sri Lanka’s economic crisis. And about our left-liberals rushing to save what’s precious to them.
As Sri Lanka suffers its worst economic nightmare in memory, some analysts even calling it “burning”, the rush to save favourites is obvious. In the glorious tradition of the liberal left, they rush to save their favoured elites and GHQ, not the poor Lankans that are suffering.
We now see articles and soundbites telling us that we should not blame three factors – China, Organic farming and family rule. No prices for guessing who tries to save who.
Hindu has an article that tells us blaming the Chinese debt trap is a “pat explanation”. Of course, durbari propaganda media servants routinely “prove” Yogi mishandled COVID saying some bodies were floating in the Ganges, something that has been happening for decades if not centuries. That is not simplistic or pat but is profound intellectual insight. No proof needs to be offered beyond that. You just mention it and the job is done.
Interestingly, it is hard to see many references to China in the Op-Eds on the Sri Lanka crisis in The Hindu, other than to perhaps to say China is trying to help them. But Indian help is portrayed as “tied”. Of course, the article conveniently quotes local sources. Guess there were no local sources blaming China or its white elephant projects.
Quint’s opinion piece says blaming organic farming is wrong. Why? Because the “fossil fuel” industry wants to use such failures. It was just not done right. There must have been adequate preparation etc., and a ready market should exist for “premium” priced organic stuff. Wow, so a country should grow rich first to afford fancy prices for organic stuff then think about going organic, not the other way around. Thanks for telling us!
Interestingly, how many of these eco-warriors offered such sage advice when the Lankans jumped eagerly into the chasm? As far as I can recall, they were all cheering and clapping like Dr Vandana Shiva. How many said “Look! The idea is good but goes slow or it can lead to disaster!” Now that the foolish move has created a huge mess, everyone is wise. And they rush to save organic from any blame, much like leftist “intellectuals” telling us each and every variation of their murderous ideology tried out by despots in each and every country followed the “wrong model” and we still must try their version because it is distilled purer from the book.
And “journalist” Ravish Kumar has been quoted as saying dynastic politics aka Parivar-wad is not to blame. No prices for guessing why. As an independent, fearless activist journalist, he wants to make sure nothing reflects badly on corrupt dynasties. After all, that is essential to the Indian, or for that matter, global liberal business model.
Viola! Three of the biggest causes are wiped clean! Zero blame.
One wonders what or who is left to blame. Perhaps Brahminical patriarchy? RSS saazish? Modi? Amit Shah? Or the fact that they are close to India where the mahaul is just not right these days? If you think that is a joke, wait until a JNU, DU or TISS worthy proves you wrong and writes exactly that.