Sectarian socialism: The politics of Sri Lanka's Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)

Modern Asian Studies

Volumn 44, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 567-602

  Venugopal, Rajesh ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

IDEOLOGY; MARXISM; NATIONALISM; PARTY POLITICS; PEACE PROCESS; POLITICAL RELATIONS; SECTARIANISM; SOCIALISM;

SRI LANKA;

EID: 77954543391     PISSN: 0026749X     EISSN: 14698099     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X09004028     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. The use of the term 'anti-systemic' here follows Jagath Senaratne's definition, which characterizes the JVP as anti-government, anti-state, anti-ruling class, and anti-'alternative left-wing power centres'. See Senaratne, J. (1997), Political Violence in Sri Lanka 1977-1990: Riots, Insurrections, Counterinsurgencies, Foreign Intervention. Amsterdam: VU University Press, pp. 104-105.
2. On the 1971 insurrection, see Alles, A. C. (1977), Insurgency, 1971: An Account of the April Insurrection in Sri Lanka. Colombo: Author's publication;
3. Arasaratnam, S. (1972), ' The Ceylon Insurrection of April 1971: Some Causes and Consequences', Pacific Affairs, 45(3):356-371;
4. Kearney, R. (1975), 'Educational Expansion and Political Volatility in Sri Lanka: The 1971 Insurrection' Asian Survey 15(9):727-744;
5. Kearney, R. and J. Jiggins (1975), 'The Ceylon insurrection of 1971', Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 13(1):40-64;
6. Obeyesekere, G. (1974), 'Some Comments on the Social Backgrounds of the April 1971 Insurgency in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Journal of Asian Studies, 33(3):367-384.
7. See Gunasekara, P. (1998). Sri Lanka in Crisis: A Lost Generation-The Untold Story. Colombo: Godage Publishers;
8. Chandraprema, C. A. (1991), Sri Lanka, the Years of Terror: the J. V. P. Insurrection, 1987-1989. Colombo: Lake House;
9. Gunaratna, R. (1990). Sri Lanka: A Lost Revolution? The Inside Story of the JVP. Kandy: Institute of Fundamental Studies;
10. Attanayake, A. (2001) Sri Lanka: Constitutionalism, Youth Protest and Political Violence. Colombo: Author's publication;
11. Moore, M. (1993), 'Thoroughly Modern Revolutionaries: the JVP in Sri Lanka', Modern Asian Studies 27(3):593-642.
12. This paper does not cover the circumstances of the JVP's split in early 2008, when a section of the party, led by Wimal Weerawansa left to form the National Freedom Front (NFF), allied to the ruling UPFA coalition of President Mahinda Rajapakse. See Venugopal, R. (2008), 'Wimal Weerawansa and the JVP', Tamilweek, 4th April 2008, for an early review of the circumstances.
13. Most JVP activists and sympathisers had been underground for an entire decade, since the party had originally been proscribed by the J. R. Jayewardena government in August 1983.
14. Chandraprema (1991), p. 310.
15. The JVP contested under the banner of the 'National Salvation Front' of Ariya Bulegoda. See Sunday Times, 31st July 1994, 'Five Groups Fight for Control of JVP'.
16. Interviews, Wijitha Herath, Gampaha, 28th August 2006, Wasantha Samarasinghe, Colombo, 2nd September 2006.
17. Amarasinghefirst returnedtoSri LankainNovember2001 for a brief pre-election campaigning trip, and eventually moved back to Sri Lanka only just prior to the 2004 elections.
18. SundayObserver, 2nd July 1995, 'JVP London Accuses JVP Paris-Tangalle Confab Illegal'. Also, interview Wasantha Samarasinghe, Colombo, 2nd September 2006.
19. The JVP had competed in the 1982 District Development Council (DDC) elections and in the 1982 presidential elections before their 1983 proscription.
20. See for example, Weekend Express, 'SLFP, JVP Stage Anti-Govt Protest', 9th March 1996.
21. Lanka Sama Samaja Party (1996), The Tasks Ahead: Lanka Sama Samaja Party & the P. A. Government: Documents, Statements, Press Releases of the LSSP, 1994-1996. Colombo: Lanka Sama Samaja Party.
22. Sunday Times, 28th November 1999, 'Vasu's LDA stakes claim as third force'.
23. LSSP (1996).
24. Sunday Times, 27th July 1997, 'LSSP to Quit Cabinet'.
25. Sunday Times, 6th April 1977, 'We are the Third Force in the Country Now-Tilvin'.
26. Interview, Wasantha Samarasinghe, Colombo, 2nd September 2006.
27. Interview, Gerald Lodwyk, Colombo, 9th April 2007.
28. World Socialist Website, 'Sri Lankan unions abruptly end two long-running strikes', 30th May 2000.
29. Interview, D. W. Subasinghe, Colombo, 8th August 2006.
30. Sunday Times, 24th August 2003, 'SLFP accuses JVP of hijacking operations'.
31. See for example, Sunday Times, 18th February 2001, 'CBK Warns JVP Unions';
32. Sunday Times 11th February 2001 'Hearts and Minds to Counter JVP Unions'.
33. Interview, Gotabaya Dasanayake, Colombo, 4th September 2006, also echoed in Interview, Bala Tampoe, Colombo, 6th September 2006.
34. Island, 'Country in a Trap, We Should Act Carefully', 17th May 2004. (Interview of Wimal Weerawansa with Prabath Sahabandu).
35. I am grateful to Mr D. M. S. Dissanayake, Commissioner of Labour, for providing access to this data.
36. I am grateful to Mr Gotabaya Dasanayake, Director-General, EFC, for providing access to this data.
37. As at the time of interview in August 2006.
38. Interview, Wasantha Samarasinghe, Colombo, 2nd September 2006.
39. Interview, Bala Tampoe, Colombo, 27th July 2006 and 6th September 2006. Tampoe acted as defence lawyer to the JVP leaders following the April 1971 rebellion.
40. Interview, Leslie Devendra, Colombo, 9th April 2007.
41. Interview, M. R. Shah, Colombo, 28th September 2006.
42. The JVP played a minor roleinsupporting the United Front in the 1970 elections and was subsequently behind bars during the 1977 elections. The next parliamentary elections took place in February 1989, at the very peak of the JVP's second insurgency. Following their near complete elimination in 1989-1990, the party was ill-placed to contest the 1994 elections and won only one seat in their traditional stronghold of Hambantota.
43. Tamilnet, 13th March 2000, 'JVP to Agitate against Norway's role'.
44. Sunday Times, 21st September 2003, 'SLFP leaders more concerned about astrologers than issues-JVP leader'. 'Regaining Sri Lanka' was the UNP government's neo-liberal economic blue-print, which was submitted in modified form to the IMF and World Bank as Sri Lanka's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). See Venugopal, R. (In press), 'The Making of Sri Lanka's Post-Conflict Economic Package and the Failure of the 2001-2004 Peace Process' in E. Newman, R. Paris and O. Richmond, (eds.), New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding. Tokyo: UNU Press.
45. Interview Vickramabahu Karunarathne, Colombo, 21st September 2006.
46. Interview, Vickramabahu Karunarathne. Also Sunday Times, 11th January 2004, 'A Government tries to put on a Brave Face'; World Socialist Website, 8th March 2004, 'The NSSP, the "peace process" and the Sri Lankan elections'.
47. Respectively, the Termination of Employment of Workmen (Special Provisions Amendment) Bill, the Industrial Disputes (Hearing and Determination of Proceedings (Special Provisions)) Bill, the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Bill and the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children (Amendment) Bill.
48. Tamilnet, 8th January 2003: 'Massive JVP Rally Condemns Peace Talks'; Daily Mirror, 9th January 2003, 'JVP Vows to Topple Government this Year'; Island, 9th January 2003, 'Norwegian-led Peace Will Lead the Country to Ruins-JVP'.
49. Interview, M. R. Shah, Colombo, 28th September 2006.
50. For example, see the interview with Tilvin Silva: Hindu, 4th May 1999, 'We Are No Chauvinists'.
51. JVP 2001 Parliamentary Elections Manifesto.
52. Midweek Mirror, 16th April 1997, 'JVP Fails to Convince'.
53. Wijeweera, R. (1986). Solution for Tamil Eelam Struggle. [published online as an e-book at http://www.jvpsrilanka.com], downloaded June 2007.
54. Wijeweera (1986).
55. Kearney, R. (1971), Trade Unions and Politics in Ceylon. Berkeley: University of California Press.
56. Although the Tamil north-east only once elected a left party MP in 1956.
57. Jayatilleka, D. (1995), Sri Lanka: The Travails of a Democracy, Unfinished War, Protracted Crisis. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House/International Centre for Ethnic Studies.
58. Interview, Gunadasa Amarasekera, Colombo, 8th April 2007.
59. Interview, Batty Weerakoon, Colombo, 9th April 2007.
60. Interview, Bala Tampoe, Colombo, 27th July 2006 and 6th September 2006.
61. Interview, D. W. Subasinghe, Colombo, 8th August 2006.
62. Jupp, J. (1978), Sri Lanka-Third World Democracy. London: Frank Cass, p. 307.
63. Jupp (1978), p. 314.
64. Nairn, T. (1977), The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism. London: New Left Books.
65. See also Munck, R. (1986), The Difficult Dialogue: Marxism and Nationalism. London: Zed Books;
66. Debray, R. (1977), 'Marxism and the National Question. ' New Left Review, (September-October 1977) 105:25-41.
67. Kearney, R. (1973), 'The Marxist Parties of Ceylon', in Brass, P. and M. Franda (eds.), Radical Politics in South Asia. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, p. 432.
68. Hansard, Vol. 24, Col 1917, 1956.
69. Jayawardena, K. (1987) 'The National Question and the Left Movement in Sri Lanka', South Asia Bulletin, 7 (1-2), 11-22.
70. Jupp (1978), p. 103.
71. Samaraweera, V. (1980), 'Sri Lankan Marxists in Electoral Politics, 1947-1977', Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 18:308-324.
72. Roberts, M. (1989b) 'The political antecedents of the revivalist elite within the MEP Coalition of 1956', in De Silva, C. R. and S. Kiribamune, (eds.) K. W. Goonewardena Felicitation Volume. Peradeniya: University of Peradeniya Press, p. 72.
73. Business Today, 27th February 2004.
74. Asian Tribune, 20th January 2004, Interview of Somawansa Amarasinghe by Walter Jayawardhana.
75. Stalin, J. V. (1945), Marxism and the National Question. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.
76. See accounts of the serious internal repercussions of this election in accounts of the JVP by Gunesekera (1998), and of the Lionel Bopage departure in Chandraprema (1991).
77. Matthews, B. (1988). 'Sinhala Cultural and Buddhist Patriotic Organizations in Contemporary Sri Lanka'. Pacific Affairs. 61(4):620-632.
78. Senaratne (1997), p. 118.
79. Chandraprema (1991), pp. 101-102.
80. Chandraprema (1990), pp. 8-9. This suggests that it was Somawansa's miraculous escape in 1990, and the subsequent success of his faction in laying claim to the party in the 1993 to 1995 period, that were ultimately responsible for re-injecting Sinhala nationalism into the JVP in the late-1990s. Subsequent communication from Lionel Bopage suggests that this factor is exaggerated, and that the real proponent of anti-Eelamism in the politbureau was Wijeweera himself. (The author thanks Lionel Bopage and Michael Roberts for conveying this information.)
81. Sunday Times, 12th July 1998, 'JVP Plans the Third Come Back'.
82. Red Power, November 1998, 'Military CoupinProcession', Tamilnet, 22ndOctober 1998, 'JVP warns of anti-Tamil violence'.
83. Leaflet issued by the JVP, NSSP, MULF, NLA, 11th November 1999, reprinted in Law and Society Trust (2000), Presidential Election 1999. People's Choice? A Report of the Presidential Election of Sri Lanka. Colombo: Law and Society Trust, Appendix 9.
84. I am grateful to Dr A. P. Shantasiri of Ruhuna University for his insights on this issue.
85. See Rampton, D. (2003), 'Sri Lanka's Many Headed Hydra: The JVP, Nationalism and the Politics of Poverty', in Poverty Issues in Sri Lanka. Colombo: CEPA Publications.
86. Obeyesekere (1974). The author has modified the descriptive statistics presented here so that they vary slightly from those computed by Obeyesekere. The major difference is exclusion of the category of 'unspecified' from the calculation of percentages, whereas Obeyesekere does include them. For example, '95 per cent of those in custody were Sinhala-Buddhist' above, means that '95 per cent of those that reported their ethnicity were Sinhala Buddhist'.
87. There are of course evident risks in using such data, the most serious of which is the possibility that it might over-represent the social categories presumed to be guilty by the police, and who were hence more actively sought out by them for capture and arrest. If the police searched out young, educated, unemployed Sinhala Buddhists for arrest, then they would clearly be over-represented in the sample. This concern is partly mitigated by the fact that only 44 per cent of the total of 10, 192 were actually arrested while 56 per cent surrendered themselves.
88. Rampton (2003).
89. See Venugopal, R. (2008), 'Cosmopolitan Capitalism and Sectarian Socialism: Conflict, Development and the Liberal Peace in Sri Lanka', D. Phil Thesis, University of Oxford.