Squandering Opportunities: Sri Lanka’s Overlooked Development Potential

Nihal Perera

doi:10.4038/bhumi.v5i1.22

Abstract

Bhumi is published by the Town & Country Planning Research Institute of the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka and the La Trobe University, Australia.Bhumi serves a wide range of subject areas directly and indirectly related to Urban and Rural Planning, Economics, Development, Governance, Urban Management, Environmental Planning, Resource Management, Construction, Housing, Infrastructure, Urban Design, Politics, Technology etc.

Highlights

Despite the last government’s heavy investment on road infrastructure, from building highways to concreting niyaras,i Sri Lanka is the only country that I know of where bus drivers hardly think that they have to stop the bus for passengers to get on and off.ii Busses are very slow, mostly uncomfortable, and not womenfriendly
The focus has been on the physical rather than the social, (See Perera 2010) There seems a big mismatch between development policies, projects, and people’s aspirations. The former have seemingly failed to fulfill their own promises as relayed by experts and politicians and/or to take people to the promised land projected by the development discourse
The political leaders were more savvy in the area of politics. They declined to take part in the Cold War, constructed a non-aligned position, and took part in the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement. They severed the vestiges of colonialism in 1972, (Perera 1999) and changed the name to Sri Lanka

Summary

Introduction

Let me begin by asking: If people have to spend hours in busses, if the bus plays loud and annoying music and does not stop for the passengers to get off, if women/girls have to constantly defend themselves from men/boys on busses and in public spaces and are restricted to particular places and times, if men are afraid to go out at particular times and visit certain places, if people are stressed out, constantly struggle to get before the other, and not reluctant to look down upon others due to ethnicity, caste, class, sex, or political allegiance, if parents have to be vigilant of their kids, if citizens bribe to get ordinary work done, if education requires tuition classes and spending the whole day, if getting the doctors attention requires paying, and if national leaders get enormously rich after they assume public office, is this development? Would building dams and highways, cleansing areas of the poor and the powerless, beautifying and gentrifying urban neighborhoods, and/or building megapolis develop such society? Who benefit from such projects?. With the help of local experts who grew up within the same post-colonial political-economy, constructed the dependent, undeveloped state of Sri Lanka that we know. They questioned the mainstream model of development: According to the paradigm proposed by the world-leaders, especially the USA, the development of the national economy (GNP) is the means to achieving the high quality of life experienced in the West.

Results

Conclusion