The indiscipline doctrine

As public discontent rises and international rating agencies keep sounding the alarm about Sri Lanka’s highly-precarious economic outlook, the Government takes refuge in distractions that are both hackneyed and ironic. The Public Security Minister, now notorious for making policy announcements that the Government must soon reverse or disavow, proposed military training for all citizens over 18 years of age.

The proposal comes while citizens are still reeling over news that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed a killer convicted by the highest court of the land as Chairman of the Housing Development Authority. The Mihintale Pradeshiya Sabha chairman, a member of the ruling SLPP, was arrested in connection with a sex abuse racket involving a 15-year-old girl. The Mayor of Moratuwa tried to threaten health officials into prioritising COVID-19 vaccination for his political supporters. The Kurunegala Mayor celebrated his birthday at a local Police station while the country was in lockdown in May-June this year.

Ordinary citizens breaking face mask rules are man-handled and thrown bodily into vehicles waiting to cart them off to mandatory quarantine far from their homes. Sri Lankans who break the rules to seek food to feed hungry families are mercilessly assaulted by the Police and left on the street to die. Government ministers and officials violate public health guidelines willy-nilly, and never face consequences. As far as discipline goes, the Government is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

But beyond this irony, the benefits of ‘military training’ must be studied more closely, particularly in the context of those State officials and ministers espousing a six-month conscription for Sri Lankan youth. Sarath Weerasekara is a proud product of military training. The former Rear Admiral served in the Sri Lanka Navy for 35 years before taking over as head of the Civil Defence Force.

Out of uniform, as a Viyathmaga champion, he proposed the public execution of the former Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, Dr Deepika Udugama. In a video interview late last year, Minister Weerasekara also revealed that the regime he serves was laying plans for a government sponsored abduction and extra-judicial transfer of former CID Inspector Nishantha Silva, who sought political asylum in Switzerland in 2019.

There is outrage over the fact that one of the country’s most senior DIGs, accountable to the same Public Security Minister, publicly threatened independent journalist Tharindu Jayawardane with a ‘fate like Prabhakaran’s’ on the social media platform Facebook. Hardly a poster child himself for the relative benefits of military discipline and training. In fact, it is safe to say that collectively, the Government in office today has no moral standing to talk about discipline, much less insinuate that it is the public that is failing to act lawfully and with decorum. 

What the regime in power is truly seeking, through this military training for young adults, is a generation bound by a code of blind obedience. Military officials like Minister Weerasekara are nostalgic for their heyday when they could command a legion of troops with a single verbal command or the stroke of a pen. Free citizens are harder to contain and peskily persist in exercising free will and expression to lampoon the Government as it racks up multiple failures of governance but remains laser focused on suppressing dissent, boosting its cronies, and patting itself on the back for a job well done. Couched in the “discipline” narrative is the true desire of a Government looking for a lifeline for political survival: A pliant, servile and unquestioningly obedient electorate.

According to Minister Weerasekara military leadership “builds personality and instils leadership qualities, respect for the law, discipline and a sense of responsibility.” The goal, he claimed, was to build a law-abiding society. If that is true, the Public Security Minister must begin by holding up a mirror to the administration he serves, and insist it leads by example. The citizen’s response to his proposal for mandatory military training must be: ‘Physician, heal thyself.’