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Paper short abstract

The study examines Sri Lanka's civic movement in 2022, which arose from economic and governance crises. Using interviews and literature, it finds that the government did not fulfil the demands of protestors, such as improved economic and political standards, reflecting failure in crisis management.

Paper long abstract

Sri Lanka is a country transitioning from ethno-religious tensions and a thirty-year protracted civil war. The COVID-19 outbreak, the Russian-Ukrainian war, declining incomes from tourism and foreign remittances, and the Government of Sri Lanka’s (GoSL) decision to ban chemical fertilisers in agriculture were disastrous for the Sri Lankan economy in 2022, resulting in food, fuel, and medicine shortages and blackouts. The people’s struggle, called “Aragalaya”, an organic, nonviolent civic movement led by the youth, emerged in March 2022 in Sri Lanka in response to the polycrisis. The “Aragalaya” movement later transformed into a platform of ethnic harmony, creativity, and political enlightenment. This movement culminated in the resignation of the government and the President. There is a controversy about whether the GoSL’s response to Aragalaya addressed the true objectives of the protestors. This qualitative study used primary and secondary data from fifty semi-structured interviews and the available literature to assess the GoSL’s response to Aragalaya protestors, grounded in the theoretical framework of Collaborative Crisis Management. The GoSL violently repressed peaceful protestors using force and draconian laws. This study found that most people still struggle to restore their living standards amid severe austerity measures. This study concludes that the protestors’ demands, such as improving the quality of life and inclusive governance, have not yet been achieved, even after a significant political change that transferred power to a pro-Marxist political party for the first time in the country’s history, which reflects the failure in developing a coherent participatory approach to crisis management.