If all this sounds too good to be true, that is probably because it is precisely that – too good to be true.Īs is the case in the lives of each being, there are no free lunches in the commerce of nations either. But is it all no-strings-attached? A rare case of bilateral altruism, purely motivated by metta (loving kindness or benevolence) and karuna (compassion)? But wait, the shoe just dropped. What a stroke of luck it is that in Sri Lanka’s darkest hour, the country with which it has the most ties with has come through. What about putting in a good and kind word on behalf of the nation? India’s Finance Minister, just last week, prevailed upon the IMF to consider the grant of a RFI to Sri Lanka, after the IMF indicated to Sri Lanka that it does not meet the usual criteria for the provision of an RFI. India’s Central Bank has also extended the duration of a currency swap which concluded in January. There will be more putting-the-mouth-where-the-handout-money-is requests from Sri Lanka’s side, since there is more where that came from, while from the Indian side, there will be more noblesse oblige. Towards this end, India has, with some aspects of it still being processed, provided financial assistance worth approximately $ 2 billion, including multiple lines of credit to purchase fuel, food and medicines, and also deferred payments amounting to around $ 1.5 billion due from Sri Lanka for imports. It is India that is currently bankrolling Sri Lanka. How has India helped Sri Lanka? Well, for starters, Sri Lanka’s Treasury has shifted its address from Colombo Fort to the Union Finance Ministry in New Delhi. It is in this context that India has decided to play “Good Samaritan” to her fallen-on-hard-times, down-on-its-luck neighbour. On the home front, the Government, with its somewhat new Cabinet of Ministers, is busy enacting a homegrown, all-guns-blazing version of The Most Dangerous Game by declaring open season, on the marooned citizenry, who, as last week’s blood shedding in Rambukkana on 19 April brought to light, only wanted the pre-18 April midnight, albeit insufficient to meet the demand, oil stocks, to be sold at the pre-18 April midnight prices, before the post-18 April Ceylon Petroleum Corporation fuel price hike came into effect (two increases within a month, and not to mention the five price hikes of the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation within six months), and who – unlike the anarchists observed by the band Sex Pistols in the UK, who don’t know what they want, but know how to get it – know precisely what they want, but don’t know exactly how to get it. ![]() – sans any bargaining chips, except the beggar’s (of the can’t-be-choosers kind) bowl of external debt defaulting, bridge financing, and the dolorous hymn of a Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) and an Extended Fund Facility-based bailout, a most, by all accounts, painful economic rehabilitation programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The country, floundering as it is in the lower depths of political, economic, and now, legal crises, has found an Asiatic guardian angel, risen from the subtropics of the East, in the form of motherly and big-brotherly India.Īcross the Atlantic, Sri Lanka is negotiating – perhaps, penitent surrender would be a more appropriate description of the situation faced by the local delegation in Washington, D.C. ![]() And with it, the time has come to contend with the issue of geopolitically toxic generosity. Over the past few months, Sri Lanka has found a guardian angel.
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