Sri Lanka: The NewJVP- Is shaping up to be actually New

Guest Column: Dr Kumar David

The Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) or People’s Liberation Front evolved into the largest left party in Lanka after the collapse of the old left (LSSP and CP) in the mid-1970s. Its founding ideology in 1965 was a variant of then popular Maoism but its founder Rohana Wijeweera was captured and shot by the UNP’s Premadasa government in November 1989. The JVP is best remembered for two uprisings, the 1971 Insurrection, a youth rebellion intended to overthrow Mrs Bandaranaike’s government that was crushed with the loss of about 10,000 lives, and the much more costly 1987-1989 full-scale uprising aimed at capturing state power.

The 1987-89 phenomenon is the closest a Lankan government came to being overthrown (the LTTE could never have taken Colombo and the Sinhalese south); the state put it down in an orgy of blood that, according to the most reliable estimates, cost the lives of about 60,000 young people, mostly in revenge killings by the police and the forces after the rebellion had been defeated. In view of these two events, the name JVP has been synonymous with armed struggle, just as the LTTE is associated with separatist war.

The participation of the LSSP and CP in coalition government (1970-75) with Prime Minister Mrs Bandaranaike, and subsequently her daughter President Chandrika Kumaratunga from the mid 1990s, created a vacuum on the left and opened the way for the JVP to capture the imagination of young radicals. Although first generation left leaders (NM Perera, Colvin R de Silva, Pieter Keuneman etc) entered coalitions for the purpose – however belied by the outcome – of achieving socialist transformations, the next (current) set are seen as opportunists seeking cabinet posts, sinecures and perks. Full Story