Bodhi Danapala , Quebec, Canada.

I was a young student at Vidyodaya university in the hay day of the rise of the JVP, and I know how its activities polarized and ultimately pulverized many of the young lives of  our  times. It was my strong Buddhist upbringing that made me reject the culture of violence that was preached by these Marxists who believed that the end justified the means, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”.   The JVP came from a seemingly less gentlemanly” rural group than the Gramasci-quoting and ineffective left intellectuals of the English-elitist era. They were also hell bent on creating revolution and capturing power by violent means. But they did not have the guts to do it or the need to get off their privileged places in society. But they  claimed  that violent revolution is  the only valid” means for taking power off the hands of the capitalist class – so we were told to be a necessity according to scientific” Marxism. It took us some time to realize that Marxism had nothing to do with science. The JVP even reduced  Marxism to a mere five lessons given in student dormitories in closed rooms to selected converts. The armed wing came from the true believers, the  erstwhile Che Guevarists”,  while anyone like myself who dared to express doubt were beaten up. We just had to shut up. Two Vice chancellors (Batuwatavithana and Stanley Wijesundara) got  shot and others (e.g, Chandre Dharmawardana) wisely left the country.

The violent destruction of the JVP during the Premadasa era did not end the movement or transform it into a social democratic force, just as the defeat of the LTTE did not lead to a new  Tamil voice rejecting Prabhakaran and looking to uplift the Tamil society. In my days as a student, the professional faculties, e.g., Medicine, Engineering and Science were the least affected (in that order) by the disruptive call of the JVP. They could not convert these committed students into flag-waving, rioting, class-cutting  comrades”  shouting Bhanga Weva” and parading the streets.

Today, the SAITM issue has given the JVP an opening for creating radicalization, dissension and disruption among the medical students themselves. Entry to University is a privilege granted only to a small percentage of the 22 million people in the country, given that the annual admissions are of the order of 10,000 students. Their duty and indeed the mandate given by the tax payer who pays for their free education is that they devote that time to STUDY, and come back to serve the community as engineers or doctors, scientists or  other specialists, teachers  or   as educated  politicians. The JVP could not break into the medical stream  effectively, before the arrival of SAITM which has become a god send for them to radicalize not only the medical students, but also the doctors.

So today, even when the nation is at its knees because of the Dengue epidemic, and other epidemics like kidney disease and what ever else, even the doctors are ready to strike? Why? What is the catastrophic issue?  Can you believe it? It is the issue of the existence or no-existence of a fee-levying medical school! If there can be fee-leaving hospitals served by free-educated doctors, why can one not have fee-levying medical faculties? There are fee-levying institutes of Chemistry”, or Institutes of Electrical Engineers, or Institutes of Accountants etc., which conduct classes and give professional degrees The Institute of Chemistry conducts courses, and gives degrees to students who have paid fees. But in regard to such institutions, the Doctors, or the JVP did not come forward to protect” free education or verify standards”!

However, my objective here is not to give another verbose polemic, but to present a solution so that socially destructive  forces like the JVP can be sent home to  learn some lessons in social democracy. If the GMOA and the medics  do not want the SAITM students appointed to government hospitals, that is fine. Move SAITM and its teaching hospital into the free-trade zone, and make it only accessible to customers who are willing to pay in dollars. Invite foreign hospital operator companies to set up world-class hospitals in the free-trade zone, offering services at competitive prices (paid in dollars), and recruit doctors from any country to work in them.  The SAITM students can work as interns in these hospitals and they can also pass out and work in the hospitals inside the free trade zone. But they cannot work inside the country until the GMOA recognizes” the hospitals and medical schools  inside the free-trade zone. The GMOA can have no objection to this scheme,

The JVP of course will see that its plan to control the student body in the medical school has been thwarted. It will no doubt try to look for some other means of sowing dissension in society. In a previous article I explained how the JVP as well as some older Marxists organized MOLNAR”. This is  an NGO purporting to push traditional agriculture against modern practices of the multinationals”, oppose genetically modified foods (GMO foods), oppose modern hybrid seeds,  and calls for a return to traditional seeds”  and so forth. Of course, the covert objective of the movement, led by die-hard Marxists like Sarath Fernando who were pioneer members of MOLNAR  was to capture the peasantry for the objective of the armed struggle. They succeeded in roping in respected but unsuspecting  Buddhist monks who were lured by the call for traditional” methods. They wanted to convert our hard-working farmers into procession-going, rioting people who have embraced the Bhangaweva culture”, and go about demonstrating instead of farming – to join hands with the urban trade unions and riot  against the state!

It should be noted that much of the lawlessness that developed gradually from about the 1950s, with constant strikes at the Colombo Harbour orchestrated by Philip Goonawardene, and the endless GCSU strikes, the asphyxiation of indigenous industries like the Velona Factory, all led to a breeding of a violent culture in a land that had been noted for a Nihathamaanee”  people with Buddhist values of cooperation, caring and compassion. Senanayake, Baron Jayatilleke and others obtained independence from the British using such methods, while the Leftists wanted to shed blood. N. M. Perera opposed free education when  A. Ratnayake and Kannangara supported it. N. M. Perera held the view that free education should be introduced only after the revolution. In the leftist political tactic, cooperation was replaced by contentious dissension with the goal post constantly being moved forwards, until the only solution was violence. Such violence came to this country several times, and more recently  with the  JVP versus government goons, JRJ cracking the Trade Unions who were foolish enough to sacrifice their cadre to an inhuman leader, and with the LTTE versus government forces who also used methods that did not spare innocent civilians. Today, even the Buddhist monks have taken over the Leftist model of agitation and social struggle, forming the so-called  Bodu-Bala Senaa”, allegedly seeded  by Norway and USA to create a Buddhist-spring” type of revolt in Sri Lanka.

Laksiri Fernando  and other political pundits”  leap to  see the horror of a Sangha state” even when the Mahanayake’s merely advises to NOT  waste time  with  the never-soluble  constitution issue hijacked  by Chandrika and Pakiasoothy. This is  at a time  when the nation is being suffocated by Garbage and  corrupt  mis-government . Political  science” is not a science of the sort that I had studied;  it is  hot-air   of  individuals who can cite no evidence or use an empirical method. Instead they quote Gramasci or Lenin. These social scientists”  should instead spend their time evaluating (if possible quantitatively)  the social harm that has come to this country via the culture of violence and the end justifies the means” ideologies of the Left revolutionaries”. The opposition to SAITM is just another exercise in their bid to  radicalize the  youth and enhance their own power struggle, as far as the JVP is concerned. It has nothing to do with medical education, or maintaining health-service  standards of the country.