“There is little to look forward to in Sri Lanka,” says Kathir*, who will board a plane to Dubai later this month for an electrical maintenance job, leaving behind his parents, wife and two children. “There’s no other option,” says the 35-year-old, who paid 4,00,000 SLR (roughly ₹1,11,500) to an agent to get on a list of workers seeking employment abroad.

Weeks after his planned departure, Sri Lanka will go to the polls to elect a new President. Citizens will have a say for the first time since the painful economic crash in 2022, when they took to the streets amid acute shortages and long power cuts. The mass uprising booted out former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country and resigned.

“How does it matter who comes to power, when our situation remains the same?” Kathir asks dejectedly. Even with two jobs, as an electrician and autorickshaw driver, he struggles to support his family in the central Kandy district, which is teeming with tourists.

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The government is targeting more visitors, so the dollars they bring can refill its coffers that ran dry two years ago. Further, it is hoping to boost its foreign exchange earnings from exports and remittances of workers — $ 5.9 billion in 2023 — who have flown out. Nearly 75,000 workers have left the country in the first quarter of 2024, after some 6 lakh people left during the preceding two years, a stark increase in departures, data published by the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment showed.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who replaced Mr. Gotabaya, is seeking a mandate to take forward his government’s economic recovery programme. He unfailingly reminds the electorate that fuel queues have vanished, there is no shortage of gas, and the country is on the path to recovery with the nearly $3 billion International Monetary Fund package he signed. He claims credit for restoring stability. Meanwhile, tens of thousands like Kathir are leaving the country to escape precarity.

Enduring deprivation

Families like his, living in the towns of Sri Lanka’s hill country, may still be relatively better off, compared to those working and residing on the tea estates, according to Ponniah Logeswary, of the Kandy-based Human Development Organization, a non-profit working in plantations and rural areas. “Their plight is dire,” she says.

Kandy is one of three districts in Sri Lanka’s scenic Central Province that is home to a sizeable population of Malaiyaha (hill country) Tamils, apart from Sinhalese and Muslims. The Malaiyaha Tamils, whose ancestors were brought by the British to work in plantations two centuries ago, are among Sri Lanka’s poorest.

Some 1.5 lakh workers, mostly women, from the million-strong community work on tea and rubber estates across central and southern Sri Lanka. The Wickremesinghe administration promised to increase their daily wage to SLR 1,700 (about ₹475). After fiercely resisting the wage hike, some of the companies grudgingly agreed to the rate more recently, but tied to targets that estate workers say are nearly impossible to meet. If fair wages remain elusive to workers, their only savings for the future took a beating when the government decided to restructure its domestic debt by recasting pension funds.

“The promise of a higher wage is a joke, because almost no one gets paid the amount,” says Ms. Logeswary. While criticising the companies for “exploiting” workers, she also blames politicians from the community for opting for “a handout culture”, neglecting the rights of the people.

Fighting for rights

While Sri Lankan voters will directly elect their president on September 21, political parties in parliament are pledging support to their preferred candidate based on past alignment and future alliance prospects in the parliamentary elections expected soon. After battling for citizenship until 2003, members of the Malaiyaha Tamil community — a 1948 legislation rendered them stateless — have been demanding decent housing and land rights for decades.

“About 68% of people still live in colonial-era line rooms and don’t own even a little piece of land. Instead of resolving the persisting discrimination, our politicians want to throw crumbs and cultivate people’s loyalties,” Ms. Logeswary fumes.

Decades of neglect made the community more vulnerable than most others in Sri Lanka during the island nation’s worst economic downturn since Independence. The Malaiyaha Tamils living on the estates feel its many impacts, such as job losses, falling incomes and malnutrition, more acutely. The jolt by the crisis and its enduring aftermath are also severely impacting children’s education in the estates, according to Kanchanadevi Kirubakar, a member of the Ceylon Teachers’ Union. Parents are increasingly unable to afford school transportation, stationery, or electricity owing to the high cost. Families are forced to skip meals. “If Covid delivered a blow to schooling in the remote, estate areas where online classes are impossible, the crisis has only worsened their situation,” she says. 

Poll pledges

Addressing an election rally at a ground in nearby Digana town last weekend, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, who is also running for President, underscored the need to improve digital aids and technology in education and governance.

“You may ask how we can afford all this. We will cut all unnecessary state expenses, punish the thieves and weed out corruption,” he says loudly as supporters cheered.

While Mr. Premadasa’s speech focussed mostly on national issues, voters, especially in the hill country, tend to base their judgment on their immediate needs, observes

D. Mathiyugarajah, senior political activist and Kandy district organiser of Mr. Premadasa’s Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB or United People’s Force), offers his views.

“In my experience, voters in the hill country do not always vote for ideology. They vote based on issues that need urgent attention. In that sense, they vote for a promise made by an emissary of a national politician,” he notes.

Sri Lanka’s local and provincial bodies are currently defunct — elections have been indefinitely postponed — bringing residents’ hyper-local, infrastructure-related concerns to the fore. Pointing to the rickety path near her estate home near Kandy, R. Mangayarkarasi says: “I wish someone lays a proper road along this stretch so we can bring a vehicle in case of a medical emergency.”

A retired tea estate worker, Ms. Mangayarkarasi now manages her home and takes care of her toddler grandchild. In her view, an accessible road to her home is as important as better job security for her son, who works in a garage, and daughter-in-law, who works long hours in a garment factory.

Sri Lanka is headed for a national election. While some voters are looking for provincial solutions, even as they navigate the national economic crisis, few voice optimism about any candidate delivering on their demands. There are 38 presidential aspirants contesting this election but many voters in the hill country say they are not spoilt for choice.

(*name changed on request)