Ravaya at 30: yahapalanaya promises and pitfalls, and Basil’s new party

 

by Rajan Philips-November 19, 2016, 8:40 pm

Last week Ravaya celebrated its 30th anniversary as a political journal. The celebration at the BMICH was attended by all of the country’s frontline political leaders, who are also partners in the yahapalanaya unity alliance: President Sirisena, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, TNA leader R. Sampanthan, SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem, and the youngest of the lot - JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake. They were all there to praise Ravaya for its long run as a political journal and wish many happy returns. In turn, the Ravaya founder editor, Victor Ivan, called upon the yahapalanaya leaders to collectively "find ways and means of sustaining good governance policies", and reminded them that there is a "long way to go before achieving their cherished political objectives."

The occasion and the attendance are among the more salutary after effects of the January 2015 victory for good governance and a new political culture. Regardless of the setbacks and disappointments in so many areas of government, it was gratifying to see leaders of all the main political parties in parliament come together to celebrate the success of a journal known for its constructive, as well as caustic, political criticism. Among the attendees was former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake. Conspicuous absentees were the two former presidents, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa, in the making and unmaking of whom Ravaya played not merely a catalytic but an instrumental role. Appropriately, Ravaya has had no role to play in Basil Rajapaksa’s ongoing creation of a new political party – the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). That too made its arrival announcement last week.

Politics thicker than blood

What is also remarkable about the Ravaya celebration is that it was not a gathering of mutual admirers, unlike the Basil-Peiris roadshow to launch the SLPP. While pleasantly sharing the stage with them at the BMICH, the JVP leader put the President and the Prime Minister on the defensive over the size of cabinet and the tardiness in corruption investigation. The President went on at some length to explain that he needed a large cabinet to keep the SLFP out of the Rajapaksas. The Prime Minister pleaded for understanding and asked the government’s critical supporters "not to make an issue over the pace at which (good governance) objectives were being achieved." The President took a shot Ravaya’s criticisms of the new government, and chided sections of the state media for being rather irresponsible in their criticisms of the government. That in itself is a welcome change, coming more than 40 years after the state takeover of the Lake House media and the government control that ensued.

At the time of the Lake House takeover, in 1974, Dr. Colvin R de Silva, then a United Front government Minister, spoke of an imminent scenario in which the state would divest itself of the Lake House and make it a truly public press. (Senator) Nadesan countered that the more likely scenario would be for the next UNP government to use the Lake House media as its own propaganda machinery, and that the cycle will continue. Well, a long cycle has been continuing quite viciously for 42 years, and it would be a good thing if this government could end that cycle permanently and vicariously deliver on Dr. Colvin’s original expectation. Interestingly, in a strange twist of political and press genealogies, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, a direct descendant of the old Lake House owners, has been taking to task, more than occasionally, widely read newspapers of today which are owned by other descendants of the extended Lake House family. In politics, opinion can get thicker than blood. But no harm is done so long as the long arm of the state is not brought to muzzle the media.

Ravaya came into being in the second half of the UNP government’s 17 year rule (1977-1994) when the opposition forces were in disarray and the UNP government was brutally suppressing any and every form of dissent, even as it was battling brutal political violence by the JVP in the south and by the LTTE and its competitors in the north. It was fittingly started by Victor Ivan, who as Podi Athula was one of the more colourful figures, in fact, the "most colourful figure", of the 1971 JVP insurrection. The founding and the continuing success of Ravaya are a living illustration of Sri Lanka’s political possibilities of non-violent and democratic political activism both at the individual and the collective levels.

Victor Ivan personifies the individual possibility of transforming oneself from a mode of protest fired by youthful inspiration and frustrated by youthful inexperience, to a mature form of political practice through individual learning and effort without sacrificing any of the core motivations that propel people into progressive politics in the first place. Equally, Ravaya illustrates the possibility of positive and inclusive political practice in Sri Lanka’s main national language without religious bigotry and without being anti-Tamil, or anti-Muslim. In fact, at different points in time, Ravaya inspired the emergence of alternative political voices in the Tamil medium. And, yes, you can also sing the national anthem in Sri Lanka’s two national languages, even though it required the Supreme Court to point out the obvious to nitpicking advocates.

Ravaya as a political journal and Victor Ivan personally were central figures in the downfall of the UNP in 1994, and the rise and fall of both Chandrika Kumaratunga (1994-2005), although she never lost an election, and Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005-2015) who suffered defeat in an astrologically determined presidential election on 8 January 2015. It was that defeat and the new Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government that was born out of it that bring another meaning and dimension to the Ravaya celebrations at the BMICH last week. It was an occasion to remember and to be reminded of the commitment that the yahapalanaya leaders made to the people in January 2015: the commitment to expose and end government corruption. Real and perceived corruption was the primary reason why President Rajapaksa was defeated and exposing and ending corruption was the primary purpose for which the present government was elected to power. Regrettably, the government’s weakest area of performance has been in the area of corruption. It is also the area in which what might be called the ‘summit political relationship’ between President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, appears to be most strained.

Summit politics under strain

Sir Winston Churchill coined the phrase "summit diplomacy" to describe direct diplomatic efforts between heads of governments without involving intermediaries. Sri Lanka has two heads in one government – President Sirisena (Pres) and Prime Minister Wickremasinghe (PM). So we could call the relationship between them ‘summit politics.’ The two have been getting along famously for nearly two years. It has been ‘summit cordiality’ between them so far. Now there seems to be a split at the summit. And the split is over the future of corruption investigations in the wake of the COPE Report on the Central Band bond scam. At cabinet meetings, in public forums and newspaper interviews, President Sirisena has been talking about the tardiness of the investigation process and the lack of results from a quite a handful acronymic agencies tasked with corruption investigation. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, has gone quiet on the matter after gallantly accepting the COPE Report in parliament, while reminding his MPs of the ungallant ways of the Rajapaksas.

The President’s readiness and the Prime Minister’s reluctance to talk do not bode well for the future of corruption investigations. It could get worse, for the summit split over corruption may encourage more cracks among the uneasy cohabiters of the National Unity government. Already, SLFP’s Dilan Perera, who after a promising start in the Kumaratunga government would seem to have degenerated to become a permanent brat, has gone public about the SLFP’s determination to go for the kill on the bond scam matter. He might have been mouthing off, but he is not way off mark from the general attitude among the SLFPers in government.

What about that part of the SLFP that is now in opposition and could become the new SLPP? It is not clear if Basil Rajapaksa and GL Peiris are jumping the gun in announcing the birth of their new baby without the full approval of the former President. Independently, there is nothing to suggest intrigue at this stage, the former Defence Secretary has released the sweet tweet that after the Trump victory in the US Sri Lankans may want to reconsider relying on professional politicians and may want to turn to non-political-career leaders to achieve results. How does that military wisdom square with Basil Rajapaksa’s political cunning? Although it is difficult to envisage politics getting thicker than blood in upstart political families, unlike in older and more diverse families where politics can get thicker than blood.

But let us not go too far turning politics into blood sport. Insofar as Donald Trump has inadvertently excited political imaginations in far flung places, it is worth noting that the essence of Trumpism is the crass exploitation of a very volatile and ugly public mood that is more pronounced in the west than anywhere else at the present time. The standard bearer of stability is now the world’s newest source of instability. It is neither surprising nor shocking to see non-western pundits who habitually rail against the west based more on nativism than genuine anti-imperialism are now pointing to Trump as a beacon to follow. Those of us whose politics is different (though not for quite the same reasons as in the old, but classic, 1950s Colvin polemic: "Their politics and ours"!) would rather see Trumpism for what it is and move on.

The more important question is how will the yahapalanaya government move on? Sri Lanka dealt with its own demons in January 2015, and needs no lesson from Trump to revisit that experience now. But political demons are never killed permanently and they can be reactivated by acts of blunder or stubborn complacency. The one blunder that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government can make is to lose sight of its primary purpose of exposing and ending corruption. At the Ravaya celebration, the Prime Minister pleaded not to be judged by the pace of change. I think he got it wrong. People are upset by the choices that have been made, and more so in regard to the Central Bank than anything else. In the past, Sri Lankan governments monkeyed with the judiciary. The new target for monkeying seems to be the Central Bank. The government’s budget seems to be right on target, but for all the wrong reason.