“The JVP however would have to resist the temptation of returning to militancy, as this time round at least, the failure is that of the party, and not exclusively or entirely of either the State or the system. It would also have to re-evaluate the political goals it had set for itself, and the quick-fix solutions it had forged in the post-insurgency period, since the late Eighties.” ____________________________
by N Sathiya Moorthy
(April 21, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Barring the unpredictable ways of Sri Lanka's politics, the current split in the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is here to stay for all intents and purposes. With that also goes the last hope of leftist political ideology, which has had a chequered but eternally weakening career in the country almost since Independence.
It was an 'implosion' of sorts that has hit the JVP, and owes it to the nature of functioning of the party. Having adopted the traditional 'need-to-know' approach of Left-leaning parties the world over, the JVP seems to have put greater premium on the processes than on problems.
So much so, when disciplinary action was initiated against a senior leader like Wimal Weerawansa, media reports on his prospective suspension, taking effect from the Eastern Provincial Council polls, had a better impact than the belated, half-hearted clarifications of the leadership.
The die has since been cast, and there is little or no way now for a possible patch-up, without both sides suffering an image and accommodation problem. The question then would be: Is the party really above personality – or, not?
Like the rest of the polity in Sri Lanka, as elsewhere in erstwhile colonial nations, the JVP too has come a long way since inception and insurgency. For the 21st generation JVP cadre, the twin insurgencies of 1971 and 1987 are part of folklore, and nothing more. The JVP is not the only party to suffer this fate. Other Left parties in the country have not been spared the agony, either.
Beginning well as the voice of the unspoken masses against the entrenched status quo elitism in pre-Independence Ceylon and after, the Communist Party got bogged down in cliché-ridden interpretation of imported concepts that divide the leadership and alienated the domestic constituency. If this provided the space and opportunity for the inevitable birth of a party like the SLFP, the latter's impatience to capture power meant that leftist economic ideology got enmeshed with right-leaning religious identity.
Sooner than later, the SLFP lost character that was anyway not there to begin with. It is the cumulative frustrations of a failed constituency that egged on the birth of a militant outfit like the JVP. For the party's cadres and voters alike, their economic needs and social acceptance were real and immediate than the 'Sinhala-Buddhist' agenda on which the SLFP put greater premium.
In the post-insurgency avatar, the JVP too changed gears even more rapidly, and began appealing to the sensibilities of the new generation Sinhala-Buddhist youth on the campus. For him, the denied opportunities from the past were made to look like a continuing reality than they really were.
It was thus that anti-Tamil sentiments, projected as 'Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism', became an easy and infectious agenda. The heart, and not the head ruled the party cadres, and stomachs continue to remain half-filled – or, half-empty. When the push came to the shove, the JVP found itself upstaged by the past master in the game, namely, the SLFP, this time headed by an earthy leader in President Mahinda Rajapakse.
Today, the JVP is at the crossroads, in terms of political goals, methods and organisation. Whether it wants Sri Lanka's millions fed and clothed in good time, or whether it wants them to go to bed on rhetoric and empty stomachs is the question that the party would have to decide. On the organisational front, the JVP has to consider if it has already spread its electoral wares too thin for impacting the democratic process.
The JVP however would have to resist the temptation of returning to militancy, as this time round at least, the failure is that of the party, and not exclusively or entirely of either the State or the system. It would also have to re-evaluate the political goals it had set for itself, and the quick-fix solutions it had forged in the post-insurgency period, since the late Eighties.
For starters, the JVP needs to consider its pronounced impatience at wanting to be the 'third alternative' at the national-level without having established itself at a more local-level. With the promised power devolution possibly opening up new political spaces at more identifiable and manageable levels of political administration, the JVP could and shout set its sight slightly lower.
In doing so, the JVP needs to decide if at all it is ready to shoulder the responsibilities of political power – and remain incorruptible, too. It cannot continue to play spoil-sport in the eyes of the voter, who would instead want his mandate respected, and his hopes and aspirations met in good time.
When improving the lot of the masses becomes the party's goal and agenda, the JVP would have transcended narrower considerations, based on religious and linguistic identities. It would be then that a cadre-based party like the JVP, as different from a mass movement of the GoP kind, could aspire for a larger national presence with leadership opportunities.
Like the rest of the post-Independence polity in the country, the JVP too is going through the inevitable process of re-orientation. The relatively elitist leadership from a past which does not hold relevance to the future generation would have to make way for the latter.
It is not about individuals at the helm, or those wanting to replace them at the top. It is more basic. It is about attitudes and approaches, flowing in turn from the distinguishable demands of a divisive culture. Suddenly, the JVP finds itself being exposed to the limitations of a cause that it had espoused as infallible for long.
It may be difficult even for a democratic political party used to its ways and methods to accept this reality and work on them, but reality, it is. The SLFP after the exit of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and the UNP even now are standing examples. The JVP too cannot avoid the processes, and needs to prepare itself for the purpose. This would mean that the leadership would need to prepare the future ones for a similar change-over in their time.
(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, the Indian policy think-tank headquartered in New Delhi. The views expressed here are those of the writer's, and not of the Foundation. Email: sathiyam54@gmail.com. We are republished with Author permission after the article originally published Colobo based daily the “Daily Mirror”.)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
by N Sathiya Moorthy
(April 21, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Barring the unpredictable ways of Sri Lanka's politics, the current split in the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is here to stay for all intents and purposes. With that also goes the last hope of leftist political ideology, which has had a chequered but eternally weakening career in the country almost since Independence.
It was an 'implosion' of sorts that has hit the JVP, and owes it to the nature of functioning of the party. Having adopted the traditional 'need-to-know' approach of Left-leaning parties the world over, the JVP seems to have put greater premium on the processes than on problems.
So much so, when disciplinary action was initiated against a senior leader like Wimal Weerawansa, media reports on his prospective suspension, taking effect from the Eastern Provincial Council polls, had a better impact than the belated, half-hearted clarifications of the leadership.
The die has since been cast, and there is little or no way now for a possible patch-up, without both sides suffering an image and accommodation problem. The question then would be: Is the party really above personality – or, not?
Like the rest of the polity in Sri Lanka, as elsewhere in erstwhile colonial nations, the JVP too has come a long way since inception and insurgency. For the 21st generation JVP cadre, the twin insurgencies of 1971 and 1987 are part of folklore, and nothing more. The JVP is not the only party to suffer this fate. Other Left parties in the country have not been spared the agony, either.
Beginning well as the voice of the unspoken masses against the entrenched status quo elitism in pre-Independence Ceylon and after, the Communist Party got bogged down in cliché-ridden interpretation of imported concepts that divide the leadership and alienated the domestic constituency. If this provided the space and opportunity for the inevitable birth of a party like the SLFP, the latter's impatience to capture power meant that leftist economic ideology got enmeshed with right-leaning religious identity.
Sooner than later, the SLFP lost character that was anyway not there to begin with. It is the cumulative frustrations of a failed constituency that egged on the birth of a militant outfit like the JVP. For the party's cadres and voters alike, their economic needs and social acceptance were real and immediate than the 'Sinhala-Buddhist' agenda on which the SLFP put greater premium.
In the post-insurgency avatar, the JVP too changed gears even more rapidly, and began appealing to the sensibilities of the new generation Sinhala-Buddhist youth on the campus. For him, the denied opportunities from the past were made to look like a continuing reality than they really were.
It was thus that anti-Tamil sentiments, projected as 'Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism', became an easy and infectious agenda. The heart, and not the head ruled the party cadres, and stomachs continue to remain half-filled – or, half-empty. When the push came to the shove, the JVP found itself upstaged by the past master in the game, namely, the SLFP, this time headed by an earthy leader in President Mahinda Rajapakse.
Today, the JVP is at the crossroads, in terms of political goals, methods and organisation. Whether it wants Sri Lanka's millions fed and clothed in good time, or whether it wants them to go to bed on rhetoric and empty stomachs is the question that the party would have to decide. On the organisational front, the JVP has to consider if it has already spread its electoral wares too thin for impacting the democratic process.
The JVP however would have to resist the temptation of returning to militancy, as this time round at least, the failure is that of the party, and not exclusively or entirely of either the State or the system. It would also have to re-evaluate the political goals it had set for itself, and the quick-fix solutions it had forged in the post-insurgency period, since the late Eighties.
For starters, the JVP needs to consider its pronounced impatience at wanting to be the 'third alternative' at the national-level without having established itself at a more local-level. With the promised power devolution possibly opening up new political spaces at more identifiable and manageable levels of political administration, the JVP could and shout set its sight slightly lower.
In doing so, the JVP needs to decide if at all it is ready to shoulder the responsibilities of political power – and remain incorruptible, too. It cannot continue to play spoil-sport in the eyes of the voter, who would instead want his mandate respected, and his hopes and aspirations met in good time.
When improving the lot of the masses becomes the party's goal and agenda, the JVP would have transcended narrower considerations, based on religious and linguistic identities. It would be then that a cadre-based party like the JVP, as different from a mass movement of the GoP kind, could aspire for a larger national presence with leadership opportunities.
Like the rest of the post-Independence polity in the country, the JVP too is going through the inevitable process of re-orientation. The relatively elitist leadership from a past which does not hold relevance to the future generation would have to make way for the latter.
It is not about individuals at the helm, or those wanting to replace them at the top. It is more basic. It is about attitudes and approaches, flowing in turn from the distinguishable demands of a divisive culture. Suddenly, the JVP finds itself being exposed to the limitations of a cause that it had espoused as infallible for long.
It may be difficult even for a democratic political party used to its ways and methods to accept this reality and work on them, but reality, it is. The SLFP after the exit of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and the UNP even now are standing examples. The JVP too cannot avoid the processes, and needs to prepare itself for the purpose. This would mean that the leadership would need to prepare the future ones for a similar change-over in their time.
(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, the Indian policy think-tank headquartered in New Delhi. The views expressed here are those of the writer's, and not of the Foundation. Email: sathiyam54@gmail.com. We are republished with Author permission after the article originally published Colobo based daily the “Daily Mirror”.)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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