By The Third Eye:

Understanding the JVP

Even though many of us among the English speaking/reading elite class tend to look down upon JVP politics as those of the upstarts, the writer for one believes that the JVP has a very valid political cause that appeals to the educated but non elite gentry in this country.

Their political base has been the Sinhala educated youth in this ex colony and to be fair, the vernacular educated youth, pushed and pulled by the suave elites have never received their rightful place even after 60 years of independence in this country.

Various progressive measures introduced by post independent governments such as the free education and the 56 revolution did liberate the people from colonial shackles but those progressive measures were often brought to nought by reactionary vested interests in the name of ‘need to internationalize’.

Hence the liberated masses in this country eventually found their aspirations getting bottled up in to a situation where they exploded every now and then, such as in 1971 and 1988.

However the English educated and the wealthy Sinhalese never express sympathy towards this vernacular educated youth, for reasons best known to them, and they might as well sympathize with the Tigers.

This class of people, who are ‘humane’ enough to consider the LTTE violence as the nemesis of Tamil grievances never give a thought to the plight of the Sinhala youth who have been marginalized for centuries by the colonials and then by their agents since independence.

It is in that backdrop that the JVP was born in the year 1969 and ever since they have been espousing the cause of local youth, filling that political vacuum.

Youth fills you with optimistic thoughts, burst with energy and brims with confidence. It is the stage where you feel that your calling in life is to change the existing order for betterment arrogating the role of the social arbiter.

The passion for change is such that ends often justify the means. JVP has used these characteristics in youth twice in its history to come to power. Those efforts however, were not successful due to lack of popular support or in their jargon ‘as the people were not yet ready for the revolution’.

Despite those unacceptable bids for power, even the worst detractor of the JVP would agree that their organizational skills, dedication to the cause and alacrity for sacrifice have been exemplary.

The JVP leadership also has, up to now, gauged the ground politics well because they have adopted a more indigenous outlook in their philosophy without allowing alien doctrines to get the better of their thinking.

With all that however, democratic political success has eluded the JVP for 40 years now. A successful man once told me that the success in life is not so much your talents and dedication but the choices you make at crucial stages in life.

That reminded me of the JVP because they keep missing the bus always, expecting a ‘never arriving’ perfect bus to come by. Providence does not come your way often and you cannot blame the ‘system’ for your improvident choices at crucial times in your political journey.

There are only two political philosophies of significance in this world. One is the liberal right that advocates lazier fair and the other believes in active central participation for development with equity.

One believes in making consumer the king while the other strives to make a king out of ordinary mortals. In Sri Lanka, the UNP has been identified with the right while the SLFP has been pursuing a center left political course.

It is in this context that the JVP is pushed to exercise its limited choice often to prevent itself from getting pushed to political marginalization. It may be that none of the existing major political powers have lived up to JVP’s ‘utopian’ expectations, but in exercising its choice the JVP has to choose the lesser of the two ‘evils’ in the larger picture.

The current Sri Lankan political scenario is where the people are faced with the choice of, on the one hand, the most people friendly and effective SLFP leadership ever, and on the other the neo rightist, misanthropic UNP leadership ever.

It is not a difficult choice and the people have shown this at the recent elections. The irony however is that the JVP who call themselves more progressive than the SLFP has opted to serve the lost cause of the UNP over the popular Rajapaksa Government. But why?

There could be two possible explanations to this riddle. The obvious one is that the JVP is buried in its ‘hate politics’ to a point where it is too blind to decipher its political friend from foe. The other is a bit more ominous.

It could be that the JVP is aiming to topple a popular government to hoist a politically amateurish army government in the country. That in turn will lead to a fascist state where the atmosphere would be conducive for a popular revolution. After all, what is required is ‘preparing the people for a popular revolution!

This should not be dismissed as pure conjecture for JVP has been striking in 25 year cycles since independence and the last was in 1988, 22 years ago. The party must be fed up of traveling eternally in the footboard and hence, by means good or bad, prefers to have its own bus.

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