The quinquagenary of a sanguinary revolt

Monday 5th April, 2021

The 50th anniversary of the first JVP insurrection falls today. The JVP emerged as a political movement, driven by a ‘Marxist’ ideology and a will to capture state power by exploiting poverty, socio-economic inequalities, caste-based discrimination, etc., to mobilise the rural youth. Its ups and downs , sharp vicissitudes of fortune as an ultra radical outfit, and transformation into a democratic political party are of interest and offer many lessons. India’s Naxalite movement, which also came into being in the late 1960s like the JVP, is still fighting a guerrilla war; it killed at least 22 Indian soldiers in an encounter in Chhattisgarh, on Saturday.

The 1971 uprising did not develop into a protracted conflict because an overconfident JVP bit off more than it could chew. JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera and his comrades in arms survived the brutal crackdown that effectively ended their revolt; they and many other combatants were incarcerated. How the JVP indoctrinated the youth before duping them into undertaking suicidal missions and the horrors of counterterrorism are described by a former JVP activist in an article we publish today. Lessons learnt, if any, were soon forgotten.

The JVP is known for its policy inconsistencies, contradictions and about-turns, which are legion. The only thing consistent about the outfit is perhaps the way it gains political momentum to propel itself periodically; it honeymoons with the main political parties and then takes them on. In 1970, it backed the SLFP-led United Front, which consisted of progressive left-wing parties. The following year, it took up arms against the government formed by that coalition. In the late 1970s, it went politically steady with the UNP under J. R. Jayewardene, who released Wijeweera and others from prison, so much so that its critics called the JVP ‘Jayawardene Vijeweera Peramuna’. A few years later it turned against the JRJ regime, which banned it, and caused another bloodbath by embarking on its second campaign of terror. In 2004, it closed ranks with the UPFA led by Chandrika Bandranaike Kumaratunga, and left her administration over a government move to share tsunami relief with the LTTE. In 2005, it backed Mahinda Rajapaksa in the presidential fray, making a tremendous contribution to his victory; thereafter, it fell out with him and tried to topple his government. In 2015, it threw in its lot with a UNP-led coalition, which fielded Maithripala Sirisena as its presidential candidate and captured power in Parliament following his victory. Its honeymoon with the UNP lasted several years before it took on the UNP-led government and Sirisena both when they became extremely unpopular.

This kind of political promiscuity has cost the JVP dear both politically and electorally as can be seen from the number of seats it has secured at the general elections over the years: one MP (elected on the Sri Lanka Progressive Front ticket) in 1994; 10 MPs in 2000; 16 MPs in 2001; 39 (from the UPFA) in 2004; four MPs (from the Democratic National Alliance) in 2010; six MPs in 2015 and three MPs in 2020.

The JVP is in the current predicament as it did not know how to manage its electoral fortunes. At the 2004 general election, its leaders fared far better than the SLFP stalwarts in some districts such as Colombo, Gampaha and Kurunegala. But it, in its wisdom, left the UPFA government before being able to make its mark in parliamentary politics.

In this day and age, radicalism has failed to retain its zing in politics, and the JVP finds itself at a crossroads, if not in a dilemma. It has had to keep its ideology relevant in the current political, social and economic milieu while shoring up its vote bank, which is eroding rapidly; this is a problem common to all cadre-based revolutionary outfits that evolve into mainstream political entities. It was only in 2004 that the JVP succeeded in striking a balance between its revolutionary ideology and populism.

The JVP’s biggest problem is that it has become neither fish nor fowl at a time when the quinquagenary of its first sanguinary revolt is marked. It has not yet been able to position itself precisely on the political spectrum. What made it attractive to the youth was its radical ideology as well as the mystique surrounding it. Today, it is devoid of any mystique and its ideology has been diluted. Both in 1971 and in the late 1980s, it made an issue of ‘rags’ worn by the youth, but today it uses smartly-clad youthful party activists in public protests! It has also chosen to swim with the tide like other political parties. First, it took up arms purportedly to create a socialist Utopia. It unleashed mindless terror in the late 1980s in a bid to torpedo the Indo-Lanka Accord and the Provincial Council (PC) system. But today, having come out of its revolutionary cocoon, it is in parliamentary politics without advocating dirigisme as such; in fact, it has come to terms with open economic policies and accepted the PC system.

The JVP’s style of politicking smacks of demagogy like that of other political parties. Whether it will be able to charter a course and navigate the shoaly waters of national politics it has drifted into over the years remains to be seen.