Engaging the JVP on Federalism

-- Ahilan Kadirgamar

If one thing has changed with the political landscape of Lanka in the last year and particularly in the last few months, it is the tremendous attention on the JVP.  It is indeed the preoccupation of analysts in Sri Lanka.  Remarkably, even the pro-LTTE analyst Taraki wrote his last two columns on them, before his shocking abduction and murder in Colombo.  Chandrika and many in her cabinet have had numerous debates and even mud slinging fights with the JVP.  Even the Co-Chairs of the Donors and the Norwegian mediators have made it one of their priorities to try and rein in the JVP.

And this attention is not related to one single issue.  Whether it is the peace process, neo-liberal reforms, tsunami reconstruction, the role of the NGOs, the anti-conversion bill etc, it is the JVP that is talked about in the public sphere.  Yet in the Lankan public sphere, and particularly among the English speaking communities, little in depth analysis of the JVP seems to be present.  Neither is there a clear understanding of what the JVP is today, nor is it clear as to where it’s headed and how it will impact the political landscape of Lanka.  Neither are we clear about its constituencies and its social base, nor are we differentiating between the JVP and the various other Southern, Sinhala and anti-globalization forces.

Hence in this issue of lines we have given space to two interventions and two editorials relating to the JVP.  It is an attempt to contribute to a much-needed discussion and debate about the JVP.  A debate that could hopefully lead to an engagement with them by progressives in the Lankan public sphere.  Because, engage we must, regardless of what we think of the JVP.  It is no longer the marginal force coming out of a decimated rebellion; it is now a strong contender to become the second largest political formation in the mainstream political realm.

As mentioned above, there are many angles from which to choose to engage with the JVP.  It could be on questions of economic development and neo-liberal reform.  Certainly, it is the JVP’s opposition to neo-liberalism and its pro-rural and pro-poor stance, rather than its position on the Tamil question that has propelled it back into the political mainstream.  One could engage with it on its recent stand on the NGOs.  One could engage with its position on imperialism and what it calls Westernization.  However, in the lines that follow, I will stick to the question of the JVP’s position regarding the Tamil minority, particularly the issues related to the peace process, pluralism, human rights and federalism.

Before going further along that trajectory, I must say that the peace process is not the only issue facing Lanka.  It is for me one among many inter-related issues.  And while recognizing the inter-relatedness of these issues, there is also the need to strategically de-link certain issues when the need arises.  A major political blunder on the part of the Ranil Wickramasinghe government and the international Donors, both strategically and morally, was their project of linking the peace process with neo-liberal reforms.  (See my interviews with Sarath Fernando in the February 2004 and May 2004 issues of lines. And ‘Who Wins the Neo-liberal Peace’ by Darini Rajasingam-Sennanayake in the February 2003 issue of lines.)  Not only did that lead to the fall of the Wickramasinghe government and the rise of the JVP, as increases in the cost of living and further pauperization alienated the electorate, it also created a negative imprint about the peace process in the psyche of sections of the South.  And continuing along that troubling path was the statement by three of the four Co-Chairs of the Tokyo Donor Conference (US, EU and Japan) on 15th December 2004:

“They expressed deep concern about the ongoing JVP-led actions against the peace process in Sri Lanka and the Government of Norway’s efforts as facilitator of that process. The representatives expressed bewilderment that a member party of the UPFA could engage in such a campaign in absolute contradiction of the clearly stated position of the President and the Government that they endorse and support the Norwegian role.” 

It was clear that the JVP’s letter of protest to the Norwegians was only a red herring for the Donors and the Norwegians to try and put the JVP in its place.  Their aversion to the JVP for its opposition to the neo-liberal agenda may have been one motivation for such a strong statement.  The LTTE leader’s Heroes day speech in late November threatening to resume the war, and the LTTE increasing tensions on the ground at sentry points and by shutting down public life through orchestrated hartals in the weeks that followed was the other reason why the donors, Norway and perhaps even the President wished to increase the heat on the JVP as a way of appeasing and deflecting attention away from the LTTE.  This strategy clearly backfired, since the LTTE was unable to restart the war due to the intense internationalization of Sri Lanka in the weeks and months that followed the tsunami.  The JVP on the other hand became more entrenched in its opposition to the Donor aligned forces.  The JVP went on to articulate a link between forces that support neo-liberalism and forces appeasing the LTTE.

Another flawed approach of engagement was articulated by no less an expert on the JVP than Jayadeva Uyangoda, a member of the 1971 JVP insurrection, and now respected as one of the foremost political analysts in Sri Lanka.  In an article discussing the JVP's verbal attacks on NGOs, Uyangoda has the following to say about reining it in:

“In a fragmented parliament, they have also been able to bully the two main political parties, SLFP and UNP, who, with all their blemishes, have allowed a multi-ethnic, democratic, pluralistic polity to take shape in this country even amidst a prolonged civil war.”

“The traditional democratic political parties in Sri Lanka, the SLFP, UNP, SLMC, CWC, TNA and left parties should not allow these half-democratic forces to use the country's parliament for undemocratic agendas and McCarthy-type witch hunting.” 

(‘NGOs and hate politics must end’ Daily Mirror, April 30, 2005)

The problem is, of course, whether the above-mentioned political parties are pluralistic and democratic in their “traditional” or modern garbs.  In the Tamil mind, it is the SLFP and the UNP and their undemocratic attacks on pluralism and their chauvinism that led to the rise of Tamil militancy. (Kumar David also makes this point in his article in this issue of lines, on the kind of actions that led to the marginalization of the minorities and the Left by these “traditional democratic political parties.”)  It is all the more ridiculous to include today’s TNA as a democratic party, the TNA is nothing less than the proxy or a puppet of the LTTE, whose members in parliament were not only elected in the most fraudulent election ever held in the North and East, but do not even have the space to mourn their own leaders and colleagues who were slaughtered by the LTTE over the last two decades.  Furthermore, Uyangoda’s reliance now on the “traditional democratic political parties” may be as flawed now as the strategy of some progressives in the late eighties who relied on these very same chauvinistic political parties.  Both the SLFP and the UNP have played havoc with Tamil rights and Tamil aspirations throughout Lanka’s post-colonial history and they both continue to play a politics of opportunism with the human rights of dissenting Tamils facing the LTTE’s guns.  And it is such opportunism that will determine these “traditional democratic political parties” engagement not only with the LTTE but also the JVP.  Uyangoda perhaps has made the mistake of confusing the bourgeois political parties from the bourgeois democratic state.  The bourgeois democratic state and its apparatuses have certain obligations to its citizens, and they in turn can demand certain bourgeois democratic and human rights as part of a social compact.  The bourgeois political parties on the other hand have been acting in the interests of their patronage networks, their consolidation of power and when it comes to the question of minorities, mobilization with their majoritarian ideology.

Keeping these flawed approaches of engagement with the JVP in mind, we may return then to the progressive agenda for engaging the JVP.  This requires clarity on the issues on which we engage and on the means of engagement.  The attempts by the Donors and the “traditional democratic political parties” to rein in the JVP are questionable both on substance and means, that is, both the issues on which they were pressured and the manner in which they exerted pressure.

Some directions on progressive means of engagement may be found in the JVP’s own history and the history of militant politics in Sri Lanka.  Again, it may be worth looking at another article by Uyangoda titled ‘Social Conflict, Radical Resistance and Projects of State Power in Southern Sri Lanka: The Case of JVP’ written a few years ago, possibly before the ceasefire, but published in 2003.  This essay is written in the great tradition of the Social Scientists Association (SSA) in it’s hey day in the late seventies to late eighties.  It is in many ways an accumulated wealth of analysis of the work of figures like the late Newton Gunasinghe on whose shoulders some of us stand to gain an understanding of Lankan politics.  Uyangoda writes:

“Indeed, the JVP’s political programme for immediate seizure of state power has been an oppressively totalizing one that necessitated violence and terror. This is where the politics of both the JVP of the eighties and the LTTE all along presents an anti-modernist, not a post-modernist, reaction to the incomplete conditions of Sri Lanka’s political modernity.”

“The violence associated with the anti-systemic and anti-state violence of these two forms of radicalism has been directed not only against the state, but also against the political formations in the public sphere that could present different agendas and practices of politics.  Bringing the public sphere under total control, with no space for deliberative politics, was a major strategic objective of JVP violence in 1987-89.  The LTTE carries on those politics in Sri Lanka’s Tamil society with great passion and commitment.”

(Pg. 54, Building Local Capacities for Peace edited by Markus Mayer et al.)

Uyangoda here is mainly talking about the JVP of the 1987 - 1989 insurrection and the LTTE during the last two decades.  The question then is about the space for engagement in the public sphere.  There is far more space for engagement in the South, including engagement with the JVP today than in the extremely militarized environment of terror in the late eighties.  It will be a grave mistake to get our historical bearings wrong and assume that the JVP is the same monster that it was in the late eighties.  Just as it would be equally wrong to assume that the Sri Lankan State now is the same authoritarian regime of the late eighties.  There may be ideological continuities in both the JVP as a party and the institutions that form the State apparatuses, but the space for engagement is different.  As for the North and East, I would agree with the Uyangoda at the time (his position seems to have changed during the last few years as evident from his regular columns) that the public sphere is under the total control of the LTTE, as hundreds of Tamils have been killed and thousands more abducted and disappeared during the three years of the ceasefire. 

If we agree that public sphere in the South provides the space for engagement, we have to now figure out the specific issues on which to engage the JVP.  As mentioned earlier, I will limit my comments to that of engaging the JVP’s position on the peace process, pluralism, human rights and federalism.  The JVP’s position on India and the Tamil minority, which it saw as agents of Indian expansionism, have indeed changed over the decades.  The JVP now uses the strongest rhetoric in opposing the LTTE, and claims it is not against the Tamils, but only against LTTE “terrorists”.  Now, the JVP has a very good relationship with India, has established links with Tamil political dissidents, and even claim to stand for the human rights of Tamils under the jackboot of the LTTE. 

However, the JVP fails the political litmus test of federalism.  It is the only major political party that has not agreed to explore federalism as a political solution to the conflict.  Both the SLFP and UNP leadership have at least agreed to explore federalism.  So did the LTTE, through the Oslo declaration, though now it seems to be back peddling.  To claim that the JVP as per its resolutions in the 1980s is for the rights of all minorities and equal treatment is a cynical denial of historical realities.  It is an insult to the sufferings of a minority ravaged by two decades of war.  When the JVP talks about “territorial integrity” or patriotism (not to mention its role in the Patriotic National Movement) as reasons for opposing certain initiatives of the peace process, including resumption of peace talks or the Joint Mechanism, such rhetoric stinks of majoritarian chauvinism.  Flirting with the language of “patriotism” in particular is a grim reminder of rhetoric that the JVP used during its insurrection of terror in the late eighties.  There are perfectly valid reasons for opposing talks based on an interim administration proposal that is undemocratic or a joint mechanism that is not accountable and does not adequately represent the Muslims.  But an opposition to initiatives within a peace process colored by the rhetoric of “patriotism”, coupled with the dismissal of Tamil aspirations for autonomy and the Tamil people’s desire for a political solution, while simultaneously expressing concern for Tamil human rights is a cynical engagement with the Tamil minority.  The JVP needs to wake up and ask the question, why are there no patriotic Tamils, even among those opposed to the LTTE?  The JVP cannot pretend that two decades of war and six decades of injustice against the Tamil community is a fiction.  They need to ask those Tamil dissidents with whom it has established links as to why they as young Tamil youth took up arms against the state.  In the Lankan context, “patriotism” is the privilege of the majority, and the uses of “patriotism” are often no different from the uses of Sinhala chauvinism.

If one is to think of a similar parallel in the North and East, even those who have opposed the LTTE tooth and nail cannot merely state that they will treat the Muslims with justice and equality in a Tamil dominated province.  Where the Muslim community is concerned, at minimum, they must call for political guarantees, safeguards for rights, democratic autonomy and reparations for past injustices.  Similarly, questions also arise regarding caste and gender oppression in the Tamil communities.  Tamil nationalism like Sinhala patriotism has been marred by the slaughter bench of history.  It can no longer subsume the Muslim identity under the category of Tamil speaking people, to do so would be the expression of ethnic Tamil chauvinism.

An engagement with the JVP, first, on an agreement to explore federalism and then on a commitment to a suitable federal model is necessary for continuing the peace process, minority confidence in pluralism, and a genuine support for human rights.  Given the history of injustices, the JVP needs to realize that minorities require institutional guarantees for cultural self-expression and against majoritarian discrimination.  Federalism is the best bet for such institutional guarantees.  However, even if the JVP accepts a federal political solution, this does not necessarily signify their transformation.  A prudent engagement will require the political will of progressives in all the ethnic communities to push the JVP to accept federalism and then hold it to such a political solution.  To do otherwise will be to repeat the folly of failed promises by the other political parties in the South.

The variety of voices that have emerged calling for the South and the JVP to address the need for a federal political solution during the last few months is a welcome change in the public sphere.  Veteran dissenting Tamil politician Anandasangaree has taken the lead in engaging the JVP in calling for the protection of Tamil rights and the simultaneous need to address Tamil aspirations by moving forward on a federal political solution.  To not engage the JVP at this point in the public sphere and through debate will be a repetition of one of the most costly political blunders.  In 1983, President Jayawardena banned the JVP for the 1983 anti-Tamil riots, which were in fact organized by his own party.  The ban led to the JVP’s isolation and disengagement with them, paving the way for the violent insurrection of 1987 - 1989.

In conclusion then, an engagement with the JVP relying on the Donors and the other major political parties is bound to fail.  The Donors do not have the leverage that they have over the ruling parties, because the ruling parties depend on Donor aid to rule the country.  The unsuccessful donor carrot used to entice the LTTE will not work with the JVP.  The JVP’s politics are diametrically opposed to the Donor agenda and any attempt to rein them in this way is bound to fail.  Various forces in Sri Lanka have acquired the habit of using the leverage of the international community to push for a liberal agenda, but in the case of the JVP, this will not work.  Next, the opportunistic politics of the two major political parties will also not provide sufficient conditions of engagement, until they decide to take a principled stand on the very same issues on which we would like to engage the JVP.  What is required now is a critical engagement by progressives with the JVP’s stand on federalism.  In claiming the status of ‘sole-representative’ and in targeting and eliminating all dissent, the LTTE continues to unite all Tamil dissidents and is creating the conditions for the silent majority to throw their lot in with the latter.  If the JVP does not make a historical shift in its position on the question of minority rights and aspirations through an embracement of federalism, the time may come when a consensus emerges on a peace with justice and a political solution in the country, and at that time, the JVP may find itself in the dustbin of history.  A major blunder of both the Wickramasinghe and Chandrika peace processes was the lack of a national discussion and debate on federalism.  This should be a priority for progressives in Lanka today. 

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