Across Sri Lankan society (except for government politicians and their sycophantic followers), people have become disgruntled with this dysfunctional government. They see it being increasingly run by presidential Task Forces headed by former or serving men in uniform, instead of by the parliamentary democratic system with its transparent institutions.

Now disillusionment is turning to outspoken antagonism as pre-presidential election promises, spelled out in campaign pledges and manifestos, are being ditched by the wayside, just as the import of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, used by rice and vegetable farmers and on tea, rubber and coconut plantations, which still contribute substantially to Sri Lanka’s export earnings, are suddenly being cast aside.

Today there are at least a dozen ‘Task Forces’, the latest being the one named ‘One country, one law’. Such messianic clichés would have some popular traction if they were believable. But public experience is to the contrary. Laws that should be universally applied, irrespective of ethnicity, religion, political beliefs and social activism, have proved to be illusory.

Even more galling is the composition of this recently appointed Task Force (TF), which has aroused the ire of wide sections of the Sri Lankan community and serious concerns amongst international human rights bodies.

President Gotabaya appointed a discredited Buddhist monk – widely known for his hate speech against minority communities, especially the Muslims, and a penchant for verbal and physical violence – to head the Force. He is a convicted felon, sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for contempt, for threatening lawyers and the judge in open court, and hurling abuse at a woman litigant whose journalist husband had ‘disappeared’ while in the hands of the military.

This rabid monk, Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara thera, was pardoned by then President Maithripala Sirisena shortly before the end of his presidential term. Not only was this monk made chairman of the TF; President Gotabaya failed to nominate a single member of the Tamil community, the country’s main minority, or a woman representative to the body, which should have been more appropriately named Task Farce.

Having heard of the appointment, Justice Minister Mohamad Ali Sabry, a Muslim and one-time personal lawyer to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, threatened to quit the government and the governing party.

The president then did what this government does frequently when guilty of policy faux pas:retreat like an army under siege, revoking gazette announcements or amending them to present a more acceptable face.

The Gotabaya Rajapaksa regime, surrounded by over-rated policy advisers, resorts to the Leninist strategy of ‘one step forward and two steps back’ to mitigate the wrath of the people, as I pointed out a couple of months back.

In late November there was more confusion over whether the government had once again changed its policy on the use of chemical weedicides when an earlier ban was revoked. It took only a few days for that gazette notice revoking the ban itself to be revoked, making last April’s foolish decision to immediately ban all chemical fertilisers sound even more ludicrous, scientifically.