Development as Freedom: need for a ‘People-Centered’ approach

By Athulasiri Kumara Samarakoon

Internationally, much debate and discussion has taken place on the concept of ‘development as freedom’, as espoused by noble laureate Amartya Sen. But seldom has the Sri Lankan academia applied or adopted it to the local context. Has post-war Sri Lanka got anything to learn from it; if at all it ever learns anything? From an ordinary person’s point of view, the answer is ‘yes’. Because today, development has become an imposition of a neo-liberal agenda backed by severe restraints on the fundamental freedoms and liberty of the people. And there is very little that such development can do for the betterment of the larger masses that are engulfed in poverty and ill-informed on the idea of freedom. In this context, Sen’s concept accentuates on an intertwined approach of economics and politics towards the practice of development, and hence, largely deconstructs what Sri Lanka is currently implementing in the name of development.   

We see that in the current context, there has emerged an authoritarian or hegemonic view and practice of development as a panacea to ethnic reconciliation in Sri Lanka. True, Sri Lanka has progressed to some extent in terms of infrastructure building in the recent past, thanks to our largest investor, China. And this development in the field of construction, with everything provided by China—money, labour force, know-how, materials etc.—contributes largely to the portrayal of economic growth in the country. The so-called economic growth projected as the growth of the entire nation then clearly becomes a sham since it has got nothing to do with the real growth of the individual’s life, in terms of real increase in per capita income, human development and more importantly human and political freedom.



What is meant by freedom in development? According to Amartya Sen, freedom should become the fundamental goal and means of development. This view on development constitutes a diametrically opposed thesis for the neo-liberal economic advocacy that deprives people of their civil and political rights. Freedom is as important as development. But the denial of civil and political rights does not guarantee that all individuals achieve development. The idea here is to create space for individuals enabling them to enhance their capabilities. When people are enabled by freedom, it enhances social efficacy and individual enterprise. People who are not in a position to improve their capabilities become only the passive recipients of the leftovers of the neo-liberal or authoritarian approaches to development: sans freedom those people are poverty stricken. Therefore, when the agential capacity of the people is denied to them, or people’s agency is not recognized by development, such practices make the individual poor. What is required to liberate people from poverty and incapability is freedom.

According to Sen we can identify five different freedoms: political freedom, economic amenities, transparency, social opportunity and protective security. These five variants of freedom, when guaranteed to citizens, can provide a novel and deconstructed idea of national development and national integration. And it is not difficult to realize why authoritative practices of development create larger gulfs between the rich and the poor, and deny people of their freedoms as a covert strategy to suppress social unrest and upheaval.  Also, if a society does not empower its individuals but restrains them from improving their full human potential, what good can the development of mega projects bring for them?

The Sri Lankan government’s approach to development (sans freedom) may have its own merits and demerits and can be contested, but still the ideational value of the concept of ‘development as freedom’ makes us think of better ways of development. In applying Sen’s concept of development as freedom, the central questions that we can raise are mainly two-fold: what exactly has Sri Lanka meant by development in the post-war context and why Sri Lanka has given little or no place to the idea of freedom of the ordinary masses.  

Political freedom, as the first in Sen’s approach, is vitally important for the full realization of an individual’s freedom to exist in a democratic space, to realize its duties to the state and then express freely its vision of the state. If individuals are only tied to the state by the oppressive machinery of political violence and are led like cattle, such a state of individual servitude and passive existence is not what the real destiny of a society should be. From time immemorial philosophers have been discussing what the ultimate aim of existence of the individual within the state is, and they have found it to be happiness.

" The Sri Lankan government’s approach to development (sans freedom) may have its own merits and demerits and can be contested, but still the ideational value of the concept of ‘development as freedom’ makes us think of better ways of development "

Happiness as the ultimate goal of an individual’s life cannot be achieved if he or she is denied their political freedom. In Sri Lanka, if the majority community, for the time being, has the slightest belief that by defeating Prabhakaran they have found political freedom (or happiness) that is the biggest tragedy on their part. Any ethnic group, or nation for that matter, cannot make its individuals realise political freedom by suppressing the rights of any other group or society, and rather they will find that they become more restrained and denied of their freedom after each and every attack on the other community.  Can anyone argue that Sri Lanka has found happiness at the end of the bloody civil war? Should we not fight back for lost happiness of our nation by guaranteeing each and every individual their political freedom? Realistically, one can guess that as a most literate and liberal nation, our people— given the right freedoms—can meaningfully answer these questions.

The other components of Sen’s definition of freedom—economic facilities, transparency guarantees, social opportunities and protective security—rightly reflect the status of development in our society. Politicians have used subsidies as a means for garnering votes, so the people have not got real economic facilities. On the other hand, we have systematically kept cutting down expenditure on education, health, public transport etc. and that has resulted in the depriving of equal opportunity and facilities required for enhancing human capabilities. What social opportunities has our state guaranteed for the poor? Have the lives of our ordinary people not been bonded to the politicians’ whims and fancies? And as corruption, impunity and political patronage have become more pervasive, have we guaranteed the ordinary people the fruits of good governance and transparency? It is sad that my answers for all these questions, looking through the lens of Sen’s ‘freedom as development’ concept has to be written in the negative.

It is understood that Sen’s concept of development as freedom re-emphasises the integral link between the two domains of knowledge, politics and economics. Despite the epistemological gulfs between them, one can see that in the absence of politics, economics cannot flourish and vice versa. The idea that market forces can only drive development for an entire nation is demystified by Sen’s concept. Development has to be carried out parallel to the enhancement of human beings’ capacity to exercise freedom and liberty in society. The state should liberate the individual from the clutches of neo-liberal development if it really wants development of the people, for the people and by the people.