The First Major JVP Meeting held in Chunnakam Attacked
The
JVP campaign among the Tamils, 1977-1982
Lionel
Bopage
Introduction
During the last four decades Sri Lanka
has witnessed three major insurrections mainly by its youth. Since the 1970s,
younger generations of Sinhalese and Tamils from similar socio-economic
backgrounds have revolted against the erosion of their democratic rights. These
insurrections reflected the diverse, but significant and unfulfilled
aspirations of the Sinhala and Tamil youth. Both the militant movements in the
south including the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the militant movements
in the north including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been
the products of the failures of economic and political development of Sri Lanka
(Samaranayake 2008).
The
post-colonial Sri Lankan state hardly considered it significant to protect the
dignity and security of its socially marginalised and disadvantaged groups.
Peaceful demands for social equity, justice, security and dignity were
continuously disregarded and/or violently suppressed by the state. Whenever new
social groups challenged the authority of state power, the establishment used
repressive and violent force. The indignity and insecurity caused by the
attacks on the physical and psychological integrity of disadvantaged individuals
and communities motivated them to take up arms on behalf of their communities.
Sinhala,
Tamil and Muslim communities in Sri
Lanka have had their own positivist
interpretations of their origins. A sizable majority of Sinhalese believe their
race is of Aryan stock dating back to the fifth century B.C. Many Sinhalese
take an ideological position that combine Sinhalaness with Buddhism and see
themselves as custodians of the land. The
Tamils, including Malaiyaha Tamils[1],
are of Dravidian origin. Non-Malaiyaha Tamils[2]
claim that they were part of the island’s original inhabitants, a claim
strongly disputed by the Sinhalese. The identity of Malaiyaha Tamils is shaped
by their social, economic, political and cultural lives centered primarily on
plantations.
The
Muslim people (Moors) trace their ancestry to Arab traders who settled in Sri Lanka
some time between the eighth and fifteenth centuries. Moors today use Tamil,
with words loaned from Arabic, as their primary language. Those in the south
also widely use Sinhala. During the colonial period of the Portuguese, when
they were persecuted, many of them fled to the Central Highlands. Their
cultural identity is strongly defined by Islam, their religion.
The
origins of the current conflict in Sri Lanka can be traced back to
colonialism. The island’s post- colonial political establishment did not arise
as a result of a coherent anti-colonial struggle that unified its people.
Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus had aspirations to become free from
colonialism. In the same process, Tamils had an additional expectation of
protecting themselves from majority domination or assimilation. Nevertheless,
the neo-colonial establishment carried forward the policies and practices to
promote Sinhala majoritarian rule within a unitary constitutional framework.
This
situation contributed to the incremental isolation of the communities from
interacting with each other, exacerbated by the divisive policies of the elite.
Behind this process of isolation one could witness
strategies for the further plundering of the island’s resources. Also one may
witness the continuous march towards authoritarianism, in which people’s hopes,
aspirations, human rights and civil liberties have been increasingly dashed.
Birth of
militant movements
The post-colonial socio-economic and
political developments generated new social forces, whose expectations remained
unfulfilled. These
new social forces adopted radical practices and tendencies against the existing
political establishment. In the south, activities of these groups generally
materialised in the form of class mobilisations. The attempts in the north and the
east, however, took the form of nationalist aspirations. These origins reflect
the dual character and outlook of the militant youth movements that later came
into being.
The JVP militancy predominantly
represented the aspirations of the rural young lower-middle class Sinhala
Buddhist constituency (Samaranayake 2008). Similarly the Tamil militancy
represented the aspirations of the rural young lower-middle class Tamils from
Hindu and Christian religious backgrounds. The state repressed both these
movements using brutal force. Both fought back uncompromisingly and at times
simultaneously, but independently of each other, against the establishment and
the presence of foreign forces. As militancy became manifested in the island,
the responses of the state and the militants caused an extension of this
radicalisation and alienation within and among the communities.
Malaiyaha youth did not enter the
process of militant radicalisation, because of their lack of social and
political consciousness. Yet, with increasing awareness among the young
generation of Malaiyaha Tamils,
the coming decades will become critical: as pointed out by Bass (2001), ‘the
growing number of over-educated and under-employed Malaiyaha Tamil youths may turn to militant protests and
violence, as the JVP and LTTE did before them’.
In the 1980s, some Muslim youth
also joined hands with Tamil militants. However, significant differences surfaced
between them when Muslims opposed the merger of the North and East under the
1987 Indo-Lanka Accord (Guruge 2006). Later on, as the Tamil militancy also
turned against the Muslims, some groups allegedly sided with the government,
leading to massacres and eviction of Muslims (Ameerdeen 2006).[3]
Lack of appropriate political and economic
development and inequitable distribution of economic and social benefits paved
the way for the radicalization of the youth. The universal franchise and the
lowering of the voting age allowed young people to take part in active
electoral politics. Free education was introduced in 1945, and the medium of
instruction was changed to local languages, which expanded higher educational
opportunities. This was seen as a welcome relief to the rural youth – to their
increasing unemployment, and a palliative to their high unemployment. However,
these opportunities were marred by the disadvantages created by the general
lack of university placements and employment opportunities caused by the
discriminative practices of the elite.
This
led to extreme discontent amongst the youth, who started questioning the
existing socio, political and ideological status quo. Successive post-colonial
governments regardless of their political hue, have been ignorant of the
underlying socio-political, economic and psychological causes of this
militancy. The more repressive the state apparatus became, the more militant
the youth became.
Many analysts portray ethnicity as
the central theme of the current conflict[4], yet politics is at its root cause.
Political leaderships of all ethnicities have opportunistically used ethnicity
as a bandwagon to establish, preserve and enhance their political, economic and
social power, and to distract people from the domestic policy and program
failures, thus building barriers to social and political interaction, and
planting mistrust between diverse communities.
The social base
of the JVP
The
social base of the JVP mainly comprised of rural Sinhala Buddhist youth,
semi-proletarian to lower middle class in nature. Prior to the insurrection in
1971, the understanding the political leadership of the JVP had about the
problems of the Tamils and other non-Sinhala communities was minimal. Moreover,
the attempts of the JVP to carry out political activities among the Tamils were
extremely limited.
Many leaders[5] of the
JVP including its founder, the late comrade Rohana Wijeweera were originally
from the Communist Party of Ceylon - Peking Wing (CPC-P). The leader of CPC-P,
the late comrade N Shanmugathasan, was a Tamil
by ethnicity. By the end of 1964, Rohana became a
full-time cadre of the CPC-P, but gradually joined the dissenters within the
party, who were dissatisfied with the leadership. He was
expelled from the party
in late 1966.
Rumours abounded that Rohana had left the CPC-P
because its leader was a Tamil. This was not the case.
In 1960s, some on the left took the position that
the vanguard of the socialist revolution in Sri Lanka lay with the Malaiyaha
Tamils. The JVP disagreed with this position and argued that the international
experience has shown that if the leading role of a revolution were based on a
minority community, the ruling elite has used racism and communalism to
undermine and prevent it from succeeding. In a country where more than 80
percent of the population was rural, more than 90 percent of the country’s poor
comprised of the rural poor, and urban workers.
Therefore, the vanguard of the Sri Lankan revolution would be the urban
working class allied with the rural peasantry.
Indian Expansionism, one of the
controversial political classes of the JVP, touched upon anti-Malaiyaha
sentiments, at times, particularly, when Malaiyaha workers were compared with
Sinhala chena workers. Malaiyaha workers were also considered allied to India not Sri Lanka.
Most of the Sinhala youth who joined the
movement did not have any social linkages to Tamils. The Engineering Faculty of
the University of Peradeniya, where the student population was ethnically and
culturally more diverse, provided one of the avenues for the JVP to reach
towards Tamil students. However, the social aspirations and the needs of many
of the students of the Science, Engineering and Medical faculties were
different from those of the students of the Arts Faculty.
The leaders of the JVP, who were held behind bars after the 1971
insurrection, made use of the opportunity to reflect back on their Maoist
political roots, and to study the national question in Sri Lanka and the related Marxist
policy position. The Tamil youth led peaceful protests against the new
Constitution of the island adopted in 1972. The blatant repressive measures
adopted by the then government against these youth provided an enlightening
environment regarding the issues affecting the Tamils.
The prisons in Hammond Hill, Jaffna, and
Kandy where
Sinhala and Tamil youth had long been held in detention provided an opportunity
for low level exchange of political ideas. Nationalism had started
crystallizing in a major way among the Sinhalese in the early fifties and for
the Tamils in the early seventies.
The policy declaration of the JVP had been finalised by the early
seventies. Its political program recognised the significance of carrying out
political activities among the Tamil and Muslim communities, particularly,
living in the north, the east, and the central
provinces of the island. When the emergency rule was
withdrawn in the mid-seventies, the JVP re-commenced its public political
activities.
By this time, the JVP had already developed contacts with several
Tamil comrades in the north, the east, and the plantations. Some of the JVPers
had the opportunity to work in areas where Tamils and Muslims predominated, or
in work places where they could develop initial contacts with them in Colombo and elsewhere.
Also there were several contacts developed between the JVP and Tamil activists,
particularly, comrade Rohana when both groups were detained in the prisons in Jaffna and Hammonds Hill.
The first central committee meeting of the JVP that was held in November
1977 allocated the responsibility and accountability of carrying out political
work among the non-Sinhala communities to its politbureau. The first feeble JVP
networks among the Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese in the north, in the east and
in the plantations were established by the end of 1977 itself. In the north the
first political cells were established in Chunnakam and Kilinochchi in the
areas where traditional left previously had some hold. Within the next year the
network extended to many areas in the north[6].
The JVP activities did not progress much in the east, except in the areas where
Muslims were predominant[7].
In the hill country, the JVP established small groups in Kandy, Matale and
Nuwaraeliya districts and there were party cells established in Nuwara-eliya,
Talawakele and Hatton. Furthermore, there were strong political alliances
established with the plantation workers trade unions[8].
Working among the Tamils and Muslims provided the JVP with the
best opportunity to understand the real-life problems and issues the Tamil and
Muslim people faced in the island. On the one hand, the ordinary people of
these communities had socio-economic and cultural problems very much similar to
the problems faced by the majority Sinhalese. On the other hand, because of
their linguistic and cultural background and circumstances, they had to face
specific problems that the Sinhalese did not have to face.
Most of the resources were spent in certain areas where the social
elite were resident, but the ordinary people in the villages were suffering
from the worst kind of social and economic issues. These people lacked even the
basic day to day needs to survive. They lacked land to work on, water for
irrigation, and basic educational and health facilities. The JVP experienced
these problems among the people irrespective of whether they were
Muslim, Tamil or Sinhala.
The
people who spoke only Sinhala or Tamil were treated with repugnance. If people
wore their rural attire, sarong or vetti, they were looked down upon. In the
south to look for employment, people had to go after politicians to get a
‘chit’ addressed to a bureaucrat. However, in the north and parts of the east,
the situation was different, because the MPs of these areas were not in the government, thus making the employment
opportunities of many educated Tamil youth even more precarious. When Tamil or
Muslim people whose mother tongue was Tamil, and who could only communicate in
Tamil, corresponded with government departments in Tamil, they received
responses in Sinhala only. To find a translator, they had to go to the closest
city, adding to their misery and resentment.
Muslim people, especially in villages like Kaththankudy, had to
face issues relating to lack of housing facilities, lack of land for paddy cultivation,
and finding dowries to give their women folk in marriage. Most of the members
of these families lived in small one or two roomed huts they shared for
everything. In Colombo,
Sinhalese and Muslim families who lived in slums, the situation was just as bad
or even worse. Many male members of these families had to go to sleep in shifts
due to lack of room to sleep. Many were compelled to engage in minor criminal
activities to eke out a living.
When the JVP approached the Tamil youth in the north[9],
already most of them had gravitated towards nationalist political positions. By
this time, Tamil youth had commenced associating with diverse Tamil militant
groups. Communications between these youth and the JVP, both in public and in
private, led to heated debates. It was clear that many young Tamil activists
had committed themselves to the nationalist struggle rather than class
struggle.
For many of the JVPers from rural Sinhala background who came to
the north and east for political activities could not see much difference
between the issues facing rural Sinhalese and Tamils. Yet it was difficult for
them to identify with the issues the Tamil people were facing due to their
cultural and linguistic background. They did not understand the language,
tradition, customs and behaviors of the Tamil people. One of the distinguishing
characteristics of the life in the north was the feudal remnants in the Tamil
society such as caste, religion and social interaction, which was more
noticeable than in the south.
Yet the Tamil youth in the north were industrious and productive;
parents were keen to educate their children to find good employment that would
allow them upward social mobility. Similar to the people in rural Sinhala
south, the rural Tamil people in the north and east were hospitable, welcoming
and open to communication. However, as time passed, the JVP also felt that
there was a change in the political mood among the youth as the armed forces of
the state, which were considered alien to Tamils, were present in many
locations in the peninsula.
There were a few Tamil JVP activists in Alaveddy, Mallakam,
Thirunelvely and Valvetithurai areas. They encountered verbal threats demanding
them to stop their political activities. Which organisations carried out such
threats against the JVP activities were not clear. This was because there were
many militant organisations blooming at the time. In some areas like
Velvetithurai and Thirunelvely such threats also emanated from those who
supported the CPC-P. In other areas these threats were assumed to be from the
militant nationalist groups.
For example, two major public events held in Jaffna in the early eighties by the JVP were
attacked. A chair was thrown at the stage when ‘Songs of Liberation’
performance was held at the public auditorium in Jaffna. Again, stones were thrown at the
public meeting when Rohana was speaking, thus injuring his forehead. Later on,
the JVP activists in the north told us that both these incidents were reactions
of the Maoist groups to protest against the growing popularity of the JVP in
the north and to frighten Tamil people from joining it. In the early eighties
when a Tamil comrade called Navaratnam was threatened by a militant
organization, and the house of one of his relations was occupied by the militants,
the JVP took measures to bring this comrade down to Colombo to stay in the party office for a
while.
On the other hand, there were pressures building up in the early
eighties from two sources within the JVP. One was from the Tamil comrades based
in Kilinochchi and Visvamadu area who demanded that the JVP should specifically
campaign for the rights of Tamil people without mixing up the issue of Tamil
rights with the socio-economic issues affecting other people in the island. The
JVP rejected this idea as it believed that all these issues arose as a result
of the capitalist economic base and the elites’ astute policies of divide and
rule. While raising the issues affecting all the working people in the island,
the JVP also raised the issues that were related to the problems of the Tamil
people.
The other pressure point was from comrades of the student wing of
the JVP in the university campuses, particularly, some who were at the
Katubedde campus. They wanted the JVP to completely drop any public discussions
on issues affecting the Tamil people. The JVP rejected this idea also on the
grounds similar to the ones raised previously. We also argued that Sinhala
people should become aware of the issues the Tamil people in the north and east
were facing. As there was a necessity to thrash out this issue in public, and
to clarify matters to the cadres, a public lecture was held in the latter part
of 1981, at the Sugathadasa Stadium in Colombo.
As one of the instigators of the policy, I addressed a packed
crowd at the Sugathadasa Stadium. I clearly explained the JVP policy position
that the JVP accepted the right to self-determination of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.
However, the JVP did not advocate separation as a solution to their problems;
rather it advocated a united Sri
Lanka with regional autonomy, where all
residents could live as equals. At the questions and answers session, I had to
respond to many questions.[10]
During
the presidential election campaign, the JVP was able to hold successful public
rallies in many places in the north and east. Yet, the number of people who
voted for the JVP in the north and east were small, but not disappointing. Many
JVP leaders, who had higher expectations, were not happy with the island wide
election outcome and the number of votes the party received in the north and
east. This poor election showing was interpreted to state that the Sinhala
electorate did not like the JVP advocating the right to self-determination of
Tamils. While this may have had some impact, it was not the major factor that
led to this situation. In the Presidential election of 1982, the majority of
the people were aware that only a candidate of the UNP or the SLFP would win.
So, most of the symapthisers of other parties also became polarised between the
UNP and the SLFP.
The JVP as a whole represented
Marxist and Sinhala nationalist tendencies. The nationalistic element rested
with the historic glory of the past Sinhala Kingdoms. The current JVP has shed
all its Marxist tendencies and become purely nationalistic. It wants to achieve
a unitary Sinhala state by defending their ‘motherland’. Thus, the Sinhala
Buddhist cultural identity can be made to flourish while western cultural
decadence and the influences of other cultures on Sinhalese could be negated.
Their so-called idea of socialism has been subsumed by its commitment to
safeguard this unitary state, which is ironically a colonial construct.
Conclusion
Between 1977 and 1982, the JVP made a
genuine attempt to forge links between the Sinhala and Tamil youth. This was
not successful due to the different historical and nationalist trajectories of
these groups, their social base, and some of the opportunistic policies that
the JVP espoused, particularly since late 1982. Both the Sinhala and Tamil
youth movements
expressed their dissatisfaction with the state and their desire for change
through political violence. Both the JVP and the LTTE adhered to a mixed
ideology of socialism and nationalism. The state was their common enemy;
however, succumbing to their nationalistic politics of the glories of their
respective feudal past, they saw each other as enemies not allies.
The
JVP was able to successfully mobilize the southern youth, but it was
adventurist and committed strategic and tactical errors. After the failed 1971 insurrection, the leadership of the JVP made use
of the opportunity to reflect on its political theory and practice.
Implementation of the new constitution for Sri Lanka in 1972 and the protests
of Tamil youth against it also informed these reflections. After the release of
its leaders in 1977, the JVP decided to pursue political activities among all
communities in the island.
In the seventies and early eighties,
the JVP was supportive of the right to self determination of Tamil people, and
recognised Sinhala, Tamil and English as national languages of the land. The
political interaction of the JVP occurred when many Tamil youth were hardening
their nationalist positions because of the repressive policies of the state.
Despite threats from some Tamil militants, the JVP persisted in its political
activities in the North and the East until 1982. However, the poor showing of
the JVP in the Presidential elections of 1982 led to a revision: some
ideologues claimed that the party’s advocacy of the Tamil people’s right to
self determination was one reason for this failure.
From that moment, the JVP moved from a
socialist party to a chauvinistic one. The political opportunism of its
leadership was a critical factor in this shift. They revived the slogan “Indian
expansionism” which had featured in the JVP program before 1972. The JVP’s
social base mainly comprised of rural, semi- proletarian and petit bourgeois
Buddhist Sinhala youth; The neo-colonial political and economic developments in
the country were not conducive to building interaction between the Sinhala and
Tamil youth; and the interaction of most of the JVP’s membership with Tamils
was minimal, so that empathy towards the issues facing the Tamil people was
also minimal.
Nevertheless, the muted examples of
political dialogue during the late ‘70s and early ’80s indicate that dialogue
is feasible among restive political elements on opposite sides of the fence. In
the present situation such dialogue has become essential to ensure that the
aspirations of the marginalised are fulfilled. However, this requires a
paradigm shift in the attitudes and thinking of all the people residing in the
island as well as the Sinhala and Tamil expatriate communities. The Diaspora
now has the opportunity to become active drivers of this paradigm shift by
changing their role as advocates of political violence to one of constructively
creating this reality through their interactions with each other.
References:
Ameerdeen V. 2006, Ethnic
Politics of Muslims in Sri Lanka,
Kribs Printers, Colombo
Bass D. 2001, Landscapes Of
Malaiyaha Tamil Identity, Marga Institute, Colombo
Bopage
L 1977, A
Marxist Analysis of the National Question, Niyamuwa Publications,
JVP, Colombo
Guruge
L. 2006, Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Problem
and Solutions, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo
JVP
1978, Policy
Declaration of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, Ginipupura
Publications, London
Samaranayake G 1997, Political
violence in Sri Lanka: A diagnostic approach, Terrorism and Political
Violence, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 99 — 119
Samaranayake S V D G 2008, Political
violence in Sri Lanka 1971-1987, Gyan Publishing House, New Delhi
[1] The
so-called Indian or Estate Tamils, workers of Indian origin speaking Tamil who
were brought by the British to
work in their plantations in 1840s.
[2] The
so-called Jaffna or Ceylon Tamils
[3]
Muslims saw the percentage of Muslim population would drop after the merger
from nearly 35 per cent in the East to about 17 per cent in a combined North
and East.
[4]
Ethnic conflict may occur between aggregations of people that share a
collective view of themselves as being distinctively different from other
aggregations of people because of their shared inherent characteristics such as
their race, religion, language, cultural heritage, clan, or tribal affiliation.
[5] Included
Sanath Boralukatiya, S V A Piyatilaka, W T Karunaratne, H B Premapala and D P
Wimalagune, Wattala Milton, W D N Jayasinghe (Loku Athula) and others.
[6] Among
these areas were KKS, Tellippalai, Udippiddi, Nellaidi, Chavakachcheri, Point
Pedro, Manippai, Mulliawalai, Visvamadu, Iranamadu, Paranthan, Pungudutheevu,
Nainatheevu, Eluvatheevu, Velanai, Karaveddi and Mallakam.
[7] In Trincomalee, Ampara, Kalawanchikudi, and
Batticaloa also there were small groups of Tamils and Muslims supporting the
JVP
[8]
Particularly, of comrade Illancheliyan
and Kandurata Tharuna Peramuna (Up-country Youth Front) led by comrade V L
Pereira
[9] Many private and public discussions and talks,
classes, and rallies were held at houses, libraries, or parks.
[10] One
of the persistent questioners was the current Dr Dayan Jayatilleke, His
Excellency the Ambassador of the Government of Sri Lanka in Geneva. He was then a simple “comrade Dayan
Jayatilleke”. I still remember his main line of questioning because, even after
the public lecture, he accompanied me up to the then head office of the JVP at
Armour Street, consistently arguing that the JVP should recognise Eelam as the
only solution to the problems the Tamil people were faced with. Later he joined
the EPRLF (one of the Tamil militant organisations) and became one of the
ministers of the Eastern Provincial Council, the Chief Minister of which
declared Eelam, when the Indian Peace Keeping Forces were present in the
island. I still continue with the same political views I had during those days
regarding the national question, but I cannot say the same about Dr
Jayatilleke.
