: Sri Lanka: Tracing the historic roots of the island’s economic crisis #IndiaNEWS For the first time in the history of the republic, the upper crust of Sri Lankan society has taken to the streets

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Sri Lanka: Tracing the historic roots of the island’s economic crisis #IndiaNEWS
For the first time in the history of the republic, the upper crust of Sri Lankan society has taken to the streets in protest. Or so it seems. Facing unprecedented price hikes and 13-hour power cuts, the comfortable, consumption-driven lifestyle of Colombo’s middle-class has become increasingly untenable. Their anger and sense of betrayal is palpable.In the upper-middle-class suburb of Rajagiriya, apartment-dwelling white-collar workers, IT and advertising professionals, artists, actors and comedians, alongside informal sector workers and tuk-tuk drivers, chant “Gota go home!� – referring to Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Many who once condemned unions for disrupting traffic with protests, have taken to the streets themselves, because they are unable to pump petrol. How did the enlightened liberal turn into an anarchist revolutionary overnight?The deprivation is a multi-class affair, of course. Farmers, fishers, day labourers, self-employed workers, manufacturing workers, white-collar workers and small-business owners have all faced the brunt of inflation. In spite of the cross-class nature of this crisis, international media coverage, including in the New York Times, has focused predominantly on middle-class anxieties, with their slogans, placards and hashtags written in English – a language not spoken by 75% of the population.Memes on social media advocate ousting all 225 elected MPs. One screamed,...Read more

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