Bank , $ 162.2 million from IMF , $ 100 million from Japan International Cooperative Agency by accepting the conditions . Accordingly , it has introduced reforms in financial sector , Formulated New Inland Revenue Act , increased VAT as part of tax reforms and introduced formula to determine atomic fuel price .
Thus , Sri Lanka is taking external debt continuously . In 2018 , it took $ 1.25 billion from China , $ 200 million under currency swap deal from Bangladesh . However , Sri Lanka is not in a position to repay . Therefore , agreed to send $ 5 million worth of Ceylon Tea per annum to repay the oil import bill of Iran to the extent of $ 251 million .
In this way , its external debt is on the rise continuously as well as its deficit in the current account of balance of payments Foreign exchange reserves decreased to $ 13.05 billion in 2019 . Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 clearly revealed the nature of dependent system of Sri Lanka . Now it is clear that these systems will not survive . Protests of people touching the sky . The Government of Sri Lanka declared emergency in September 2021 .
Conclusion
The forces of monopoly capital faced certain difficulties to articulate Sri Lanka vigorously for their own interests due to the LTTE civil war during 1983 to 2009 . The collusion of India with the strategies of Imperialist forces to remove this inconvenience resulted in sending Indian Peace Keeping Force ( IPKF ) to suppress LTTE civil war . In the process , so many developments took place till the murder of the then Prime Minister of India , Rajiv Gandhi .
The present critical experience of Sri Lanka should be a lesson to all the emerging economies which are strongly implementing policies which are favourable to imperialist forces on the name of neo-liberal policies . It is the firm and scientific prediction that the present Sri Lanka crisis is the future image of India . This will not be visible to economists whose observation
May - 2022 is peripheral and therefore , they give hopes that the danger is not in near future . In fact , same neo-liberal policies have been aggressively implementing since 2014 in India . They are implemented to destroy the lives of majority and to increase the wealth of billionaires enormously . Job-loss growth is continuing . Majority people are living in miserable conditions on the assumption that they are normal , in the unorganised sector without any job security .
On the other , the government is giving various concessions and incentives to monopoly capital and waiving thousands of crores of rupees loan extended to them by public sector banks . On the name of sale / disinvestment , valuable public sector undertakings are handed over to corporate forces at as cheap as possible . Roads , Railways , Ports and Airports i . e . entire transportation sector is handed over to monopoly capital . Government is taking strong measures to hand over land , forests , all the natural resources including minerals as well as entire collective properties inclusive of rivers to corporate forces . Taking excessive external debt for the creation of infrastructure and generation and supply of power to hand over them to monopoly capital on the name of asset monetization . In the agriculture sector , only cultivable land is with farmers . With black farm laws , the government designed to hand over it to monopoly capital . However , it is stopped presently owing to the one year strong and stable movement of farmers . Health and Education sectors are corporatised resulting in the demise of public education and health systems . Majority are denied . With more than 100 crore extremely poor people , a separate country is built within India in a disguised way . Their children should learn skills which have demand in other countries and should have to migrate for the survival . Imposing GST to collect more and more revenue from the people who are in miserable conditions due to demonetisation and Covid-19 pandemic . For the past several years , the prices of petrol , diesel and cooking gas is on the rise continuously . Excessive rise in the prices of all essentials including the prices of medicines and transportation charges . The lives of bottom 70 percent is critically miserable and on the other extreme rise can be seen in income and wealth inequality . Ambanis and Adanis are successful in getting place in world billionaires . Self-reliance is negated . As rightly said by A . K Bagchi , the India has been articulated as a strong dependent country for the interests of imperialist exploitative forces . Comrade Tarimela Nagi Reddy already in his Court statement titled ‘ India Mortgaged ’ firmly stated 50 years back that rising external debt is a strong index of growing crisis in India . The rate of growth of external debt is higher than the growth rates of national income . As a result , it is impossible for India to repay . Looting emerging economies is the definite way for dominant countries to come out from their crisis of capitalism and this process naturally throws emerging economies into critical crisis . Sri Lanka is no exception in this regard .
Either in India or in Sri Lanka , a strong consolidated people ’ s movement is necessary to build society free from exploitation and oppression and to ensure decent lives to all . This necessarily requires the leadership of revolutionary forces . �
TARIMELA NAGIREDDY MEMORIAL TRUST PUBLICATIONS
HISTORICAL AND POLEMICAL DOCUMENTS OF THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT IN INDIA
VOL . I 1943-51- RS . 300 / - VOL . II 1963-72- RS . 500 / -
For Details : T . N . Memorial Trust , 32-13-26 / 1 ,
M . R . Puram , Vijayawada , pin-520 010 .
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