By the time these comments are being read, the satiation from the 4 Ks — Kavum, Kokkis, Kiributh and Kolikuttu followed up with the fire-water from the life-giving coconut tree or milder stuff would have worn off and it would be time for contemplation about what holds for the New Year. We wish all our readers a happy New Year and hope their wishes come true.

New Year is also the time for making resolutions for living a better life. Even though a Sunday editor is also a kind of preacher, we refrain from telling the people how to lead a better life such as giving up the much proclaimed evils because that is the job of the clergy, who undoubtedly said all about it during the avuruddha. Instead we will take this opportunity to suggest to President Rajapakse and his government a few New Year resolutions because in their first year, the some of the areas they had resolved to go ahead seem to have gone awry and others seem to be yet grandiose visions.

The area which President Rajapakse has gone off track appears to be his military operations resulting in the international community coming down on him rightly or wrongly. We will reserve further comments on this issue for a later date and instead stick to Avurudhu resolutions.

President Rajapakse has won the plaudits of moralists, prohibitionists and the pious for his crackdown on alcohol and tobacco last year. Today, merry makers cannot have their ‘peduru parties’ in open esplanades with a ‘bottle’ that cheers in the centre, nor could anyone smoke a cigarette at a bus halt while kicking their heels waiting for a bus, lest a constable hiding behind a bush would nab him.

This is indeed commendable because he has also the awesome responsibility of nabbing any terrorist placing bombs on the roadside or in buses. Let’s hope that the Mahinda Chinthana imposed with the strong arm of the law would succeed where great religions have failed to accomplish over millennia.

One aspect which the President and his Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva seem to have not noticed, wittingly or unwittingly, is medical reports on the incidence of oral cancer in Sri Lanka.

This country has had a world first in the incidence of oral cancer mainly caused by betel chewing, it was reported recently. We wonder why there has been no public concern shown about the dangers of this habit of betel chewing which is mainly affecting the poorest of the poor. Is it because it’s an indigenous habit enjoyed by a vast majority of the people that the government will not impose a crackdown? Apart from politicians why do not the defenders of the interests of the masses, the religious leaders speak out against betel chewing? Why will not those young activists disfiguring the walls of Colombo and the countryside with posters blasting the Tobacco Company take up the issue of betel chewing? Is blasting betel cultivators not as ‘sexy’ as blasting multinationals? Don’t the young bucks and the pious old, realise that both cause cancer?

Perhaps a leader from the remote regions of Girawatapattuwa calling upon the peasantry to give up betel chewing is unthinkable. The natives will think he has gone bonkers. But real leaders are those who can make people give up habits and traditions which they are long accustomed to. Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew says that his greatest achievement as an administrator had been to stop Chinese spitting at public places!

The urbane and the sophisticated in Colombo who buy the traditional avurudhu sweet meats – kavun and kokkis — from the five star hotel outlets may have forgotten that avurudhu is a harvest festival. Down the ages it has been the festival of farmers who after harvesting the paddy and selling it at a reasonable price, joyously celebrate, very literally, the fruits of their hard labour. Today for many thousand cultivators it would be a sad day. Reports from the provinces say that farmers have not been able to sell their produce at a fair price. Some have been unable to repay their farming loans. Last year there were a number of suicides of such farmers reported from the rice bowl of the country— the Polonnaruwa District. This year too the farmers are no better off. It is surprising that this should have happened when a man who claims to have his roots among the paddy farmers of the deep south is the all powerful Executive President of the country.

One of the promises of the Rajapakse presidential election campaign was cheap fertiliser for farmers. This has not happened and most people who were realistic believed that it was one of those classic SLFP pledges: ‘Rice even from the moon.’

Fertiliser is an imported product which is dependent on world market prices and unless it is subsidised by the government lowering of prices is not possible. There is no reason why such a subsidy – even to a certain extent cannot be made — if it is given priority over presidential, ministerial and parliamentary perks.

‘The farmer is king’ has been the slogan of our politicians down the years. But the farmer after wallowing in the mud and toiling in the sun for over half century is still in penury even though he has contributed mightily to near self sufficiency in rice. Today when a rice cultivator is unable to sell his produce — even find a place to stock it — and debtors are knocking on his door, his only option is to drink insecticide. It is an unpardonable crime for which all politicians should be held responsible.

The Paddy Marketing Board was disbanded and the system of purchasing by the private sector has failed. Monopolies in paddy purchasing and milling have emerged and those behind it are powerful politicians. The number of warehouses to stock paddy is inadequate. The Govi Raja has become a ‘Govi Hinganna.’

Since the 1930s, the one consistent development effort that was made has been to make the country self-sufficient in rice. This neglect could be due to foreign experts such as those from the World Bank who advised us to grow cash crops instead of paddy. Now there appears to be a surplus of rice. It is ironic that other Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia are rice exporters while Sri Lanka seems to be scaling down its efforts in rice production. The fault appears to be that we have not invested enough on rice research to produce new varieties of high yielding rice.

Sri Lanka’s culture has always been a rice based culture and a shift to fancy crops such as gherkins may bring immediate profits but will be dependent on international market forces. President Rajapakse should well know that if the men and women toiling in the muddy paddy fields get out it will be impossible to get them back in it. It will be the end of the Sri Lankan culture as we know it.

Lets hope that the New Year, which is a festival of the farmers be one of joy to them in the coming years.