Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka on April 13, 2022 in front of the Presidential Secretariat | By AntanO.
Mittal Institute: Can you tell us about the current crisis in Sri Lanka? What are you hearing from people and organizations working on the ground?
Ashri Anurudran & Anshul Puli: For context in the current crisis, the Sri Lankan people, upset with the economic crisis and political corruption, protested in Colombo and overthrew the president Gotoboya Rajapaksa in July 2022. This event was preceded by months of economic instability, and Sri Lankans continue to face food insecurity, fuel shortages, and lack of healthcare access.
In the past few centuries – from the Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonization of Sri Lanka and its devastating 26-year civil war to the 2004 tsunami and 2019 Easter Attacks – Sri Lanka’s complex history of ethnic tensions, political unrest, and limited free speech exacerbates the current challenges of the ongoing political and economic crisis.
We have been in contact with over 15 organizations on the ground in Sri Lanka and over 20 contacts, including NGO leaders from a diversity of fields, medical professionals, youth organizers, Ministry of Health officials, and Embassy diplomats. We have heard a diverse range of perspectives through speaking with such people as school administrators, healthcare providers, and NGO leaders. When we spoke to a leader in a rural school for children with disabilities, she shared how the school struggles to transport students because of the fuel shortages and how these children are unable to access food and medicine without the ability to go to school. When we spoke to the director of a large Sri Lankan NGO, he discussed how other NGO leaders came together to negotiate with UNHCR and the International Monetary Fund, asking them to provide their IMF bailouts to the Sri Lankan government with the strict condition to protect the lives of the arrested Sri Lankan youth leaders and organizers of the Aragalaya protests.
We have also learned how the current lack of food security, healthcare, and transportation access is especially similar to the experiences of the Tamil minority community during the 26-year-civil war, along with other Singhalese communities in resource-poor areas. Through conversations with people on the ground, we have better understood how the current crisis has also been an important reflective moment with power for reconciliation, as the Singhalese and Tamil people share similar struggles in this crisis and can experience empathy for each others’ challenges during the war.
Ashri Anurudran (above) and Anshul Puli (below) coordinate programming at Harvard to aid in Sri Lanka’s humanitarian aid efforts.
Mittal Institute: What are a few of the most pressing needs in the country right now?
Ashri Anurudran & Anshul Puli: This ongoing economic crisis stemmed from a depletion of foreign reserves in Sri Lanka, making imports even more difficult and nearly impossible for certain goods. In conversations with many different NGOs, nonprofit organizations, hospitals and the Sri Lankan government itself, they consistently highlighted the resulting lack of fuel, food, and medicine in the country.
On the grounds of food access, the USAID reported 6-million people in Sri Lanka (around 30% of the nation’s population) are facing food insecurity. The restrictions on imports from the current reserve depletion and past legislation have made it so that farmers are unable to utilize certain fertilizers for growing crops. The U.S. recently promised $40 million in agricultural aid to address the growing lack of food access, while different humanitarian aid organizations are fundraising to distribute food packs to people – with focus on pregnant women, children, and low-income populations.
Medical access has been brutally hit, with medicine and medical supply shortages rampant throughout the nation. Foreign aid has been the primary source of funding for medicine imports, with the government waiving shipping costs for medical deliveries. Many entities within Sri Lanka—NGOs, Ministry of Health, individual hospitals—have banded together to support the strained medical system.
On top of all of this, the lack of fuel imports have made the delivery of any goods incredibly difficult. Only a month ago, many people reported weeks-long waits to receive fuel. Every sector and community of Sri Lanka have felt this impact. Medicine and food delivery have to be prioritized for fuel allocations, while the transportation sector has been left to acquire whatever fuel they can access at stations. Education access has been difficult, with students unable to commute to schools. Alternative modes of transportation, like bicycles, have experienced drastic inflation among high demand.
To address the crisis in Sri Lanka, each of these needs must be simultaneously addressed, given how interconnected each are to resource access and people’s wellbeing. We hope our fundraiser, webinar, ongoing educational series on Sri Lanka, and articles like these are able to further rally support to aid in the current humanitarian crisis.
To address the crisis in Sri Lanka, each of these needs must be simultaneously addressed, given how interconnected each are to resource access and people’s wellbeing. We hope our fundraiser, webinar, ongoing educational series on Sri Lanka, and articles like these are able to further rally support to aid in the current humanitarian crisis.
Mittal Institute: You recently held a webinar that provided more context for the situation with experts from the country. What were some of the key takeaways?
Ashri Anurudran & Anshul Puli: Our recent webinar was a discussion about Sri Lanka’s path to recovery amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis, featuring perspectives from leaders in the community working to aid Sri Lanka in different ways. Dr. Thayalan Ambalavanar is a surgeon and visiting lecturer at Teaching Hospital Jaffna, who has been coordinating donors and medical supply aid for hospitals in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. He also spent time during the Civil War years at Teaching Hospital Jaffna as a fierce advocate for medicine and equipment when supplies from the government were restricted. Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne is the President of Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, Sri Lanka’s largest non-governmental organization, which supports clean water access, housing and sanitation, communication facility development, energy supply access, spiritual and cultural needs, peace building, and conflict resolution. Among their tremendous breadth of aid areas they cover, Sarvodaya has focused on crisis relief, providing food packs and medicine to support communities currently in need.
In our webinar, we talked about the current state of Sri Lanka, how the crisis progressed to where it is now, unity among communities, and their hope for the future of the nation. They discussed how this crisis came from government mismanagement of economic planning; yet they laid some individual responsibility on people living beyond their means. They repeatedly referenced that a beacon of hope is the ‘unity demonstrated by the younger generation during the Aragalayas’ – a term referring to the 100 days of protests that happened in Colombo during the summer months.
Amid a history of ethnic divisiveness—from Sri Lanka’s Civil War between a predominantly Sinhalese government and Northern Tamil minority—a growing theme of unity among ethnic groups came from this economic crisis, which was universally felt by all Sri Lankans. This unity resulted in more people discussing issues facing minority groups and advocating for larger calls to action on social media – a new platform for galvanizing people to protest their current conditions. They discussed Sri Lanka’s history of restricting journalists’ free speech, which still impacts many people speaking out against the government.
Their hope is that others outside Sri Lanka—who are listening to the stories of people protesting and supporting the work they’ve been conducting—can inspire more global support and reckoning against the government’s actions towards its people. There was a somewhat bleak sentiment over the future of the nation held by the panelists, especially as young people try to apply for foreign passports to escape the growing humanitarian crisis. Yet, they believed in a path forward, with short-term help coming from foreign aid for food and medicine access. While long-term, they see a greater need for a more sustainable economy through investment in healthcare, education, agriculture, and reduced parliamentary spending.
Mittal Institute: What are Harvard students and student organizations doing to respond to the crisis and ongoing challenges?
Ashri Anurudran & Anshul Puli: With shared momentum and mission across the South Asian Associations of the Harvard schools, we were excited to come together for the first time to mobilize energy and support for the people of Sri Lanka during this current crisis.
It was inspiring for us to see allyship across the South Asian Student Associations and across the schools. Most of these South Asian Associations are typically made up of mostly Indian students, so it was touching to see the solidarity and power in our allyship. On another note, it was also exciting to see the different perspectives that the students from the different schools across Harvard brought given their backgrounds and expertise. Our point person from the Law School was always thinking about legal restrictions, and our Harvard Business School student was always giving creative insights about how to leverage certain partnerships for marketing and fundraising strategies. It reinforced how important and effective interdisciplinary approaches can be!
It was inspiring for us to see allyship across the South Asian Student Associations and across the schools. Most of these South Asian Associations are typically made up of mostly Indian students, so it was touching to see the solidarity and power in our allyship. It was also exciting to see the different perspectives that the students from the different schools across Harvard brought given their backgrounds and expertise.
Mittal Institute: Ashri, could you talk about your personal connections to Sri Lanka and your own family’s story?
Ashri Anurudran: As a child of Sri Lankan immigrants who escaped the civil war in the 1980s, I have always understood the importance of using my privilege to amplify the voices of those left behind. Through long family visits in Sri Lanka, even as a child, I quickly realized how my story could have been switched with children who had lost their lives, families, and communities in the devastating 26-year war.
Growing up in England, Malaysia, and the United States, I also witnessed and experienced the silence surrounding Sri Lanka and how, in the few moments when Sri Lanka was brought up, the struggles of the war and destruction of the island dominated these conversations. Because of this, my parents always emphasized the importance of exploring and celebrating our Sri Lankan heritage and culture. From speaking Tamil at home and learning Sinhalese phrases to frequently indulging in Sri Lankan delicacies like Kottu Roti and Wattalapam and celebrating Sri Lankan traditions, I have always felt deeply connected to my Sri Lankan roots and feel a strong purpose in advocating to elevate Sri Lanka, a country that has been historically overlooked, within our Harvard community and more broadly.
Throughout my five years on campus as a Harvard College undergraduate and now as a medical student at Harvard Medical School, there has been a lack of representation of Sri Lanka in both academic and social spaces. My hope is that we can harness this energy and interest in Sri Lanka during this unique moment in history to build a stronger platform for education, research, and partnerships across Harvard and Sri Lanka. Personally, it feels very meaningful to be able to use the immense privilege of being at Harvard to mobilize commitment and give back to the Sri Lankan community. I am very honored to be a part of. It has also been touching to see the unity and allyship to support Sri Lanka, demonstrated across the South Asian students as well as the greater Harvard and global community.
Mittal Institute: Anshul, you are not from Sri Lanka – what moved you to get involved?
Anshul Puli: As an Indian American student, I’ve been in various South Asian student spaces both formally, through student organizations, and informally. There was always such a community around shared Indian cultural identity and unity against crises precipitating in India. Discussions around the marginalization of certain Indian ethnic identities and classes would shed light and support on groups traditionally excluded from these South Asian spaces.
However, in the wake of the Sri Lanka crisis—a culmination of ongoing economic instability—there has been little rallying response and similar discussion about their suffering. This inequity in coverage within South Asian spaces reflects a longstanding tendency for these to become India-centric, lacking the voice of other South Asian nations (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, etc.). As someone who has traditionally benefited from a spotlight on my own cultural and historical issues in South Asian student groups, I believe the current Sri Lankan crisis shines a demanding need to bring a light onto Sri Lanka’s rich history and culture, their past conflicts, current crisis, and the wonderful humanitarian aid work conducted by Sri Lankan community leaders. While these discussions should have happened much earlier, the pressing, growing need for medical, food, and fuel support presents an important time for the South Asian community to rally together in unified support.
Mittal Institute: How can the Harvard community help and learn more about what you are doing?
Ashri Anurudran & Anshul Puli: Sri Lanka’s past and present has a lot to teach us – it is a unique case study that not only can provide insights into economic development, ethnic tensions, post-war reconstruction, gender equality, education, colonial history, arts, and comparative religion, but also can provide learnings for other countries globally enduring similar issues.
Our hope is that this summer’s webinar not only provided necessary resources for those who lack access to food, transportation, and healthcare, but also precipitates a long-term commitment to the recovery of Sri Lanka and her people.