The JVP from Wijeweera to Fonseka

Roans Wijeweera founded the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in the early 1960s to espouse the cause of a section of people who had been politically marginalized in independent Ceylon. That section was the vernacular educated youth.

Free education introduced by CWW Kannangara liberated education from the colonial shackles of missionary schools and the introduction of Swabasha as the medium of instruction in the 1960s did away with the social dichotomy in education. Thus education that was used as a tool of imperialism was finally made a means of national renaissance by the post independent Government of Ceylon. But the colonial vested interests in this country were too powerful to allow national rejuvenation that easily.

They made Kannangara lose his seat in the 1952 Parliament and dubbed the Swabasha Bill that was designed for national integration as ‘Sinhala only’. The castigating of the Official language bill as ‘Sinhala only’ was not born out of any love for Tamil rights but purely because of the need to thwart moves to prevent English from being dethroned.

Agency houses

However, even though those attempts were successfully resisted by the Government of the day, the reactionary elements in Ceylon were far too strong. They knew that even if they could not control education they could always control employment through the colonial economy based on agency houses. Hence the

 Swabasha educated youth had no employment opportunities anywhere but in the Government sector. The mercantile sector preferred the English speaking O/L qualified youth from ‘posh schools’ to graduates from village schools. Even for employment in the estates, Kundasale agriculture graduates were overlooked in preference to those O/L qualified from ‘traditional’ schools. Not because English was spoken in the estates but because it could be used as a sifter to give employment only to the kith and kin of the English elite. Wijeweera saw the opportunity in this, where education was creating pent up aspirations in youth with limited employment opportunities.

Hence he placed his political base among the unemployed graduates as the springboard to indoctrinate the rest in the country. He told them that this marginalization was not due their ‘karume’ (lot) but rather due to not having inherited their ‘urumay’ (heritage).

Democracy, he said is only a capitalist ploy to peg them down with propaganda and handouts and therefore is only a dubious method of buying the elections for state power.

Revolution on the other hand, he said, will bestow power on the true proletariat to be used for the good of the people with no obligations to the capitalists who manipulate elections. Hence revolution with mass support, according to Wijeweera, was the only way of forming a true Government.

Wijeweera’s cogent appeals nearly succeeded and had it not been for the majority’s Buddhist philosophical inclination, his 100 percent materialistic rationalization of life would have triumphed. His advocacy of means justifying the ends also did not go well with the masses. Wijeweera’s enemy no.1 however was the reactionaries who thwarted social progress and the UNP being the party with ‘traditional’ vested interests in Sri Lanka, always remained Wijeweera’s political bete noire. The UNP Government too considered the JVP to be their ideological nemesis and hence took steps to eliminate the JVP by exterminating the leadership in 1989.

The JVP however lived on and 25 years hence the party managed to gain its highest representation of 39 Parliament members in 2004. This showed that the JVP, with the right progressive alliance could always become a force to be reckoned with in Sri Lankan politics.

Decisive split

In 2007, however the JVP underwent a decisive split in its rank and file as the party hierarchy ostensibly thought that they should be more progressive than the SLFP led Government in power.

But this soon proved to be a crucial mistake in the Sri Lankan political milieu, dominated by two political camps, the progressive, and the reactionary. Hence the JVP soon faced the political reality of either remaining a ‘political orphan’ or being adopted by the reactionary camp headed by the UNP.

The JVP ironically enough, has now chosen the latter path for its political survival. Hence the JVP now stands alongside those they called ‘neo capitalist’, ‘exploiters’, ‘unscrupulous elements’, ‘reactionaries’ and ‘social evils’. As if that is not enough the JVP has made the release of General Fonseka, the defeated Presidential candidate, as their main platform theme.

Well, however much the JVP would like to own Fonseka for itself, the people in this country have not forgotten that Fonseka was not the JVP candidate for Presidency but rather the joint Opposition candidate.

And what was worsts was that Fonseka’s public utterances with regard to the economy and the 13th Amendment made him nothing but the UNP candidate at the last general election. Fonseka even boycotted the first public meeting held for his Presidential bid because it happened to be organized by the JVP.

The JVP after having stomached all that humiliation has now come forward with ‘securing the release of Fonseka’ as its only cause quite oblivious to the fact that their real political cause was to secure the liberation of marginalized masses in this country.

The JVP, by making this advocacy so stridently and with all that dedication, has today become the tragicomedy of proletariat politics that is championing the release of a rightwing General who had no reservations in stating that he, needed a ‘shot’ to do his best thinking; believes in American education for his children and is ready to chose the American capitalist society as the first choice of his residency.

Has the JVP received any guarantee from Fonseka that when he becomes the President of Sri Lanka that he will, either award scholarships to American universities or find employment in the United States for all those vernacular educated youth who served the JVP cause all this while?

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