{"id":107076,"date":"2020-09-28T15:51:24","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T22:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107076"},"modified":"2020-09-28T15:51:24","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T22:51:24","slug":"is-jvp-a-political-party-that-deviated-from-the-traditional-left-politics-and-development-oriented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/28\/is-jvp-a-political-party-that-deviated-from-the-traditional-left-politics-and-development-oriented\/","title":{"rendered":"IS JVP A POLITICAL PARTY THAT DEVIATED FROM THE TRADITIONAL LEFT POLITICS AND DEVELOPMENT ORIENTED?"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

It is amorphous what the objectives\nof traditional left political parties when they were established in Sri Lanka?\nPeople of Sri Lanka had been adapted to feudalism in politics and\nadministration since Kalinga rule, and generally, they did not prefer a\nrevolutionist administration that turns the country to upside down.  Many historians view that the leftist\npolitics in Sri Lanka, which began in the 1930s was only a small weave of a\nrevolution that represented less than 0.01% of the population. Many views the\nweave of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 had not been able to influence Sri\nLanka because the country consisted of more than 70% of people who were farmers\nand did not expect radical changes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of revolution of JVP was\na result of provocative speeches of JVP leaders than a genuine expectation of\npeople since the 1971s and the movement has declined now rock bottom in 2020\nreflecting the actual nature of the movement and expectation of people.   The\npotential outcomes of left politics in Sri Lanka that were commenced by a\nforeign-educated handful of people the movement mirrors the true nature now. When\nlooks at the strategies followed by them, it can assume that they did not want\nto capture the political power of the country and implement the dreamed\neconomic policies to bring liberation to proletarians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Left political parties including\nLSSP. CP, and others, JVP too since the inception demonstrated that they have\nno adroitness to construct effective leadership and workable policies, which\nwould be beneficial to ordinary people in the country.  If it conducts scientific research on the\nrelationship between education expansion and the political alignment to left\nparties in Sri Lanka, it can be found that when the education level of the\ngeneral public has been expanded the alignment to left political parties has been\ndeteriorated or radically declined to approximate zero levels.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although left political parties\nsince inception have been appealing to proletarians using terms of Karl Marx\u2019s\nin Communist statement, that proletarians have nothing to lose, they have a\nworld to win, the statistical evidence is quite informative that the support of\nordinary people to left political parties had been draining since independence\nand the lowest has reached in elections in 2019 and 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the 1956 blue revolution,\nleft political parties adapted certain engineering strategies to safeguard the\nparliament seats of party leaders rather than capturing the political power of\nthe country.  Later, they had\nopportunities to join with governments to obtain cabinet posts, JVP separated\nfrom governments manipulating theoretical issues or other reasons, but the\ntruth was they were incapable of developing policies to attract people.  In the 1977 general election, traditional\nleft political parties were wiped out from the parliament by the voters of the\ncountry. The effort of the late 1980s of JVP entirely failed and the bemoan\nresult was primarily responsible for eliminating thousands of youths giving\nsorrow to parents, relatives, and friends. Many JVP supporters contemplated the\nsituation and left the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many political analysts brood that\nJVP was established as an alternative to left political parties in the late\n1960s and the entire policy structure of the party was weakly founded on five\npolitical lessons that secretly delivered to intending members. Mr. Rohana Wijeweera\nrejected rural farmers stating that they were not revolutionists.   Political lessons aimed to motivate young\npeople to overthrow the democratically elected government by an armed\nstruggle.  The party was an affinity to\nCuban and North Korean models, which were struggling to survive in isolation\nfrom the democratic world.  The party\nleader, Mr. Rohana Wijeweera expressed that the party would reject traditional\nleft political parties because they were either reformists or agents of\ncapitalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The five political lessons were based\non points mentioned in books and speeches that were popular at that time.\nPolitical lessons were constructed from the analysis of political philosophies\n(Deshapalana Dharshana Vigrahaya) by JRP Suriapperuma, an article written by\nMrs. Sunethra Bandaranaike criticizing left politics, some speeches delivered\nby Kim Ill Sung, the leader North Korea, Speeches delivered by Illanchellion of\nwe Tamils Movement\u201d – Api Demalu Viyaparaya\u201d which supported to South Indian\nExpansionism, many speeches of Cuban Leader Fidel Crusto and Che Quora.  JVP did not get any support from a powerful\ncountry.  Five political lessons were\ncomprised of provocative ideas against capitalism and western political opinion\non various issues.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Marxist concepts were\ncomplicated dilemmas that had difficulty in comprehending. Some ideas expressed\nby JVP leaders were vague and confused. \nOne idea that stuck with JVP was, the capital originates from and\nbelongs to labor, and this idea was based on the points expressed in a booklet,\nLabor, and Capital written by V.I Lenin. \nThe main point of the book was to argue capital is a result of labor but\nnot any factor, and it ignored the relationship with other factors such as land\nand entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South Indian Expansionism was\nnot an idea of the Central government of India, the concept of South Indian\nExpansionism was strongly refused by India and the division of India was\nrefused by Mathma Gnandi and succession leaders after the separation of\nPakistan.  The government and opposition\njointly against separatist policies and India helped Sri Lanka to destroy the\nLTTE movement, which had the idea of Vijaya Nagar kingdom in 2010 as the\npolicies of LTTE focused to create the Vijaya Nagar Empire, which was a threat\nto many countries in the South and Southeast Asia. The JVP leader, Rohana\nWijeweera was the opposite of LTTE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the late 1960s, JVP was able\nto convince its message to a handful of people in rural areas and few\nuniversity students and the majority of university students rejected JVP\npolicies and strategies as they were blindly constructed and may be fallacious\nin the social and cultural environment of the country.  Few educated youths in villages armed with\nlocally made crude weapons in 1971 and attempted to over through democratically\nelected government with a vast majority of parliament seats.  In 1971 and 1988-89, JVP overestimated the\nstrength of the party looking at people who attended political rallies\naddressed by Mr.Rohana Wejeweera, who was a charismatic orator and also\nunderestimated the armed power of the government forces and international\nsupports to the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government easily controlled\nthe 1971 insurrection and later uprising with the supports of insiders such as\nMr.Anura Kumara Dissanayake. JVP lost the majority of its leaders and devoted\nyoung supporters during the two struggles, which were ill-advised and wrong\nmotivated. The experience gained from two insurrections indicated that JVP\nleaders never respected human values and have used education and the young\ngeneration as billyboys for sake of the party. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Mr.Rohana Wejeweera talk to\npeople with an effective plan to solve economic and social issues in Sri\nLanka?  This was a vital issue that many\neducated people discussed and debated in the past as the behavior of JVP from\n1971 to 1989 was critically suspicious and many responsible people were unable\nto understand what they wanted to do. \nJVP hasn\u2019t had a strong trade union base or block votes of farmers or\nthe middle class.  They attempted to play\npolitics with high school and university students who were the future of Sri\nLanka. Since 1971 JVP unreasonably put hands to Sri Lanka\u2019s education, and the\nquality of education unexpectedly eroded by the manipulating issues they used\nfor their benefits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 1995, JVP admitted their past\nmistakes of attempting to overthrow the government by an armed struggle and\naccepted the democratic path to capture the power by peoples\u2019 votes.JVP gave\npriority for eliminating corruption, youth unemployment, and promoting\nnationalism and they delivered speeches in political platforms like crusaders\nand they captured several seats of traditional left parties in the parliament.\nAfter the general election of 2004 they joined hand with SLFP but. Separated\nsooner than the experience in the coalition government in 1970.  If JVP assumes that it is a policy-oriented\nparty and it has capabilities to fight against corruption and restore\ntransparency in administration, why did it leave the government in early 2000\nand became armchair critics like traditional leftists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the beginning of JVP, it had\ntwo major weaknesses in constructing the party as an alternative to the ruling\ngovernment.  The first weakness was that\nit had no foreign exposure to run the country forward adapting to the\nmodernization of the world.  According to\nradical changes physically happening in the world after the postmodern era, no\none can deny or isolate from or reject the modernization of the world, to going\nalong with the modernization of gaining the benefits of developing science,\ntechnology, and innovations to the people of Sri Lanka.  To achieve these purposes, leaders of\npolitical parties like JVP need good foreign exposure to see what is happening\nin the world and to construct economic, social, and political policies which\nare parts of modernization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Deng Xiao Ping, China rapidly\nmodernized because in spite of communist background, a conservative Maoism of a\ngang of four, Deng had an excellent foreign exposure by the educating in the\nUSA and gaining knowledge of modernization to critically analyze what is going\nin the world and how to reshape policies of the communist party adapting to\nmodernism.  Under Boris Yeltsin and Putin\nin Russia and current Vietnam and many communist countries did the same thing\nto modernize policies in line with changes in the postmodern era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second weakness is related to\nthe economic philosophy that would be adopted by the party if it comes to\npower.  The current global economic\nfundamentals crystallize that Marxist policies aren\u2019t working in the modern\nworld because the capital is the center of development and the government is\nnot an efficient organization to manage the capital to generate productivity\nand employment.  According to\nMr.Wejeweera JVP was a party that strongly believed a  classical Marxist economic philosophy that\nhas no faith in the capital and private entrepreneurship.  The reality in our region is that many Asian\ncountries had good economic philosophers like Lee Kwan Yu in Singapore,\nMahathir Mohamad in Malaysia, and Isaku Sato in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These political leaders launched\ntheir countries with a strong economic philosophy response to economic\nissues.  For example, as a political\nleader, J.R.Jayawardane has a strong economic philosophy that many countries\nwere willing to support by financing the projects under this philosophy.  As a result, Mr J.R.Rayawardane was able to\nbring modernization and reshape the economy accepting that capital is the center\nfor development and private entrepreneurship is the hope for the eradication of\npoverty, generation of employment, and increasing national income.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, Mr.Mahinda\nRajapaksa has a philosophy, which is called Mahinda Chinthanaya, which is\naccepted by foreign governments as a direction for the country, which is the\npossible solution for the country\u2019s economic issues.  I think Mr.Nipun Ranavaka is the right leader\nfor the country after Mr.Gotabaya Rajapksa to launch Mahinda Chinthanaya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JVP has no philosophy and people\nare scared to vote for him and hand over the power to them because nobody knows\nwhat they will do after capturing power. People need a clear responsible policy\nstatement from JVP, which could be verified while they are in the opposition\nbefore taking over the power. Although few corruptions have been recorded by\nsome JVP members it is recognized by the general public that JVP is a\ndisciplined party, which could win the support of the public and foreign\ncountries, if they are willing to change the classical Marxist attitudes and\nready to accept the market economic policies. When compared to Singapore,\nMalaysia, and Japan, if market economic policies have been implemented with\ndisciplines and constant monitoring generate the right benefits to the country\nSri Lanka would have been achieved developed status. JVP must be ready to\nchange the policies and give up the traditional left politics to attract the\nwide support of the domestic and international community, it can achieve the\nopposition leadership and Mr.Anura Kumara Should leave the leadership.     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS It is amorphous what the objectives of traditional left political parties when they were established in Sri Lanka? People of Sri Lanka had been adapted to feudalism in politics and administration since Kalinga rule, and generally, they did not prefer a revolutionist administration that turns the country to upside down.  Many historians […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}