India and Sri Lanka has complementary economies; both could benefit from integration. A bridge would be the most direct way of bringing them together. Ranil Wickremesinghe suggested this; a dozen years later, there is no sign of it. I wrote this in Business World of 22 September 2003.
Ranil’s vision
On 23 August, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, gave a lecture in Madras which should have been
heard by Atal Behari Vajpayee and his cabinet. He said that India and Sri Lanka
shared a success; that after they became independent, both developed viable
democratic systems – something few developing countries managed to do. And both
share a failure: both failed to make their people rich, while others like East
Asians succeeded. Free market reforms transformed China. Korea built up an
economic powerhouse before instituting full-fledged democracy. Indonesia
concentrated on raising economic performance and only then began to
democratize. Vietnam is attracting large amounts of foreign investment while it
remains one of the last communist bastions. Sri Lanka was held up as a model in
the 1950s; countries like Malaysia and Singapore looked up to it. Today they
have left it far behind.
The reversal has been brought about by
the emergence of the international market. Increasingly, trade has broken
national boundaries, and people in different countries are dealing with one
another; the governments have nothing to do with it. This movement of goods,
services, finance, even ideas across national frontiers has brought prosperity
to the countries that took the opportunities it offered. Governments have to
facilitate and encourage this flow if they want their people to prosper.
Sri Lanka and India can emerge as one of
most dynamic regional markets in Asia if they integrate their economies. Wickremesinghe
gave examples of tea, textiles and information technology where removal of
barriers would benefit both countries.
Integration would be closest between Sri
Lanka and South India. The two together, within an area of an hour’s flight
time, offer tourists the greatest variety of beaches, mountains, ancient
monuments, wild animals and natural beauty. Integration of the resources of
both would raise incomes and employment, especially in rural areas.
Integrating the two economies will
require better power, transport, communications. In infrastructure too, it
makes sense to think regionally than nationally. A power grid stretching from
Nepal to Sri Lanka would be far more efficient than a large number of
fragmented segments.
Wickremesinghe mentioned a bridge between
Rameshwaram and Talaimannar as one of the last steps in integration; it would
vastly increase the flow of goods between the two economies, and help them
emerge as a global marketing base.
“Let us build a common future from our
common past,” Wickremesinghe said, “All it requires is the imagination, the
leadership and the commitment to shake off the shackles of the past, bring
peace to this part of the region to make our people rich.”
I was particularly touched by this
appeal; Wickremesinghe put in a leader’s language what I have been pleading for
for some years now. When I met him last May he seemed a bit embattled. The
friction between him and Chandrika Kumaratunga, the Sri Lankan president, must
have taken its toll. I asked him how a well established pillar of Sri Lankan
society, editor of one of its leading English dailies, could think of striking
his roots and going to settle down in Canada. He said that salaries in Sri
Lanka were low. So they are in India; but I doubt if the editor of BusinessWorld
would think of leaving India. At this level, most Indians would find their
lives and careers rewarding enough to stay in India; they could never find
equally exciting careers in other societies.
People do not mind poverty so much. They,
of course, suffer if they are destitute, or if their living standards fall. But
the level they are used to does not hurt them. But their expectations matter
much more. If they expect life to get better, they will bear a lot; if they
expect it to get worse, the worry and depression will pull them down.
That level of hope depends on whether
there are peace, security and economic growth. India and Sri Lanka have not had
enough of these; Ranil is saying to us, let us achieve these together, it is
much easier to do it together than separately.
