{"id":57250,"date":"2016-08-02T23:25:51","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T05:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=57250"},"modified":"2016-08-02T14:46:30","modified_gmt":"2016-08-02T21:46:30","slug":"pada-yathra-the-coming-of-age-of-a-new-political-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/08\/02\/pada-yathra-the-coming-of-age-of-a-new-political-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Pada Yathra: The coming of age of a new political force"},"content":{"rendered":"

by C. A. Chandraprema\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

August 2, 2016, 8:19 pm<\/span>
\nThe Joint Opposition\u2019s pada yathra from Kandy to Colombo over five days from the 28th of July to the 1st August undoubtedly made political history. This country has not seen anything like it before. I observed the commencement of the pada yathra in Kandy on the 28th and its end in Mawanella that day and the commencement of its final leg from Kiribathgoda as well as the final janahamuwa at the Lipton Circus. Before the final leg began from Kiribathgoda, Mahinda Rajapaksa, addressing the crowd that had assembled for the start, said he had organised pada yathras before but that was going to be the biggest such event the country had yet seen, and he was right. The sky was overcast from morning but the weather held till the pada yathra concluded at Lipton Circus and that was a major contributing factor to its success.<\/p>\n

A pada yathra is by far the most gruelling and exhausting form of protest that one can think of. This is not for the old or the infirm or the overweight. As such the participation at events like this will be considerably lower than for any other political event. Despite this when the pada yathra commenced in Kandy on the 28th, the crowd that participated was larger than at most political meetings. I thought would compare very favourably with the attendance at the first ‘Mahinda Sulanga’ rally in Nugegoda in February last year. The commencement of the last leg from Kiribathgoda was also a sight to behold. The police cleared the three lanes of the road leading to Colombo and at around 10.30 am the pada yathra commenced with the pilot vehicles moving into position. As the procession began to move, large numbers of people came rushing out onto the other side of the road from of the Kiribathgoda bus stand where they had assembled, and moved on ahead of the pilot vehicles.<\/p>\n

In Kandy as well as during the last leg from Kiribathgoda, the pada yathra was actually led by a disorganised crowd several thousand strong, with the more organised groups coming later. After having observed the start of the procession, I fell in behind the last group in the pada yathra which was led by D. V. Upul and walked with the procession for several kilometres. The three lanes of the road were a sea of heads as far as the eye could see. It was not a procession made up of people walking in groups of five or six or even ten or fifteen. People were walking 25 to 30 abreast, from the pavement to the centre fence and the entire road was densely packed.<\/p>\n

Even with the road completely cleared of traffic, it took an hour for the procession to pass one spot. Aerial footage of the Kiribathgoda town would have been quite a sight. I dropped out of the procession after a few kilometres and after relaxing with a friend, went to the Lipton Circus to see the final janahamuwa. The pada yathra started moving from Kiribathgoda to Colombo without knowing where exactly in Colombo they were headed. Even after crossing the Kelaniya bridge and moving onto Baseline road, nobody knew where they were headed. A few people inquired from me whether I knew where they were going. After a while this writer received a call from a university academic who was in the procession saying that they had turned towards Maligawatte from Baseline road. That was the indication that the pada yathra would be moving towards Hyde Park which they had booked earlier for the final meeting.<\/p>\n

Even though the grueling walk from Kiribathgoda to Colombo would have made several thousands including this writer drop out of the procession half way, some more would have joined en route so the final group that assembled at Lipton Circus would have been as large as the crowd that began the march. After all the marchers had reached the destination, the whole of Lipton Circus was one sea of heads \u2013 probably the largest crowd to assemble at that location yet. From the very beginning the government leaders made a mess of the way they handled this opposition protest. They made it obvious that they were in a blind panic about the opposition march. They tried to obtain magistrates\u2019 orders banning the protest from every Magistrate\u2019s court along the route from Kandy to Colombo and failed. They tried to convey the impression that UNP membership drives were to be held in Kandy and Mawanella on the same day as the pada yathra but failed to get the respective magistrates to issue restraining orders on the Joint Opposition protest.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, no membership drives were held at all in Kandy and Mawanella making it look as if the pada yathra had caused the UNP membership drives to get washed out. The stated objective of the pada yathra was to protest against ETCA, the VAT increase, the persecution of armed forces personnel and other such issues. However, the obvious unstated objective was to solidify public support for the opposition coalition so as to be able to strike out on their own as a political party against both the UNP and the SLFP at future elections. The latter objective they have certainly achieved with the Hyde Park meeting in March, the May Day rally and now this pada yathra. The overwhelming success of the pada yathra has laid the groundwork for the Joint Opposition to form a new political party to contest the local government elections or the provincial elections whichever comes first.<\/p>\n

In fact, the May day rallies this year was a desperate contest between the rival political forces in the country to see which side drew the biggest crowds. This writer went to observe the UNP rally in Campbell Park, the JVP rally in BRC grounds and the Joint Opposition rally in Kirullapone as the rallies peaked between 4.30 and 5.30 pm. The UNP rally had commenced by that time in Campbell Park but people were still marching to the venue from Panchikawatte through Maradana and Borella. Taking into account all the people at Campbell Park and those still on the road, and the JVP rally which was easier to observe since the entire procession had arrived at the BRC grounds by that time, this writer found that the Kirullapone rally was much larger than both the UNP and JVP rallies. So, the government lost the contest to draw the largest crowds on May day. As for the pada yathra, it can be stated with confidence that neither the UNP or even the UNP and SLFP Sirisena faction combined, will be able to even think of organising something like that.<\/p>\n

If the UNP and the SLFP (Sirisena faction) was not able to outdo the Joint Opposition on May Day, it stands to reason to assume that they will not be able to compete in organising a pada yathra bigger than the Joint Opposition’s show because of the greater difficulties involved. The Hyde Park rally in March, the May day rally and now the pada yathra coming just six to eight weeks after one another shows an incredible capacity on the part of the Joint Opposition to mobilise huge crowds. They are now well prepared to enter the hustings as a separate political party. Mahinda Rajapaksa has an advantage that neither SWRD Bandaranaike nor the DUNF led by Lalith and Gamini had when they split from the UNP. When Bandaranaike split from the UNP, he went into an opposition which was then dominated by the LSSP and he had to elbow his way to the top. In the case of the DUNF the opposition was dominated by the SLFP.<\/p>\n

However, the advantage that Rajapaksa has over both SWRD Bandaranaike and the DUNF is that he has a complete monopoly of the national opposition in a situation where even the JVP is seen for the large part as a yahapalana coalition partner. The contest between the government and the opposition is a straight fight between the MS and RW-led government and the MR-led opposition and that is what makes the shows of strength in Hyde Park, on May Day and the pada yathra so important. Many people feel that though the Joint Opposition put up grand shows of force with the ‘Mahinda Sulanga’ rallies starting from the historic Nugegoda rally of 18 February 2015, that still did not enable them to win power. However, the circumstances before and after August 2015 are very different. Before August 2015, the Joint Opposition and Rajapaksa were captives, so to speak, of Maithripala Sirisena, who could by giving speeches and writing letters, undermine the entire campaign led by MR. That situation has changed since August. What we saw with the pada yathra of the Joint Opposition is not only a political event of historic significance, but also the coming of age of a new opposition force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by C. A. Chandraprema\u00a0Courtesy The Island August 2, 2016, 8:19 pm The Joint Opposition\u2019s pada yathra from Kandy to Colombo over five days from the 28th of July to the 1st August undoubtedly made political history. This country has not seen anything like it before. I observed the commencement of the pada yathra in Kandy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57250","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=57250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}