By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham
Colombo, December 20: The leader of the National People’s Power ( NPP) Anura Kumara Dissanayake (popularly known as AKD) is nowadays talking about the need for a national liberation movement.
He says that when looking at the social, political and economic realities of Sri Lanka, it is clear that what is needed today is social change and for that what is needed is not a political party, but a national liberation movement.
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is their party and the NPP is a national movement.
Judging by the views expressed by Dissanayake in a recent interview given to Meera Srinivasan, the Colombo correspondent for the Chennai-based influential English daily ‘The Hindu’, it is understandable that he is trying to say that NPP which was formed few years back under the leadership of JVP in alliance with more than 25 other parties, groups, women’s, youth rights organizations and trade unions, will carry forward the national liberation struggle he envisions.
“Looking at the developed countries, their progress was largely linked to the national liberation struggle. India had a great national liberation movement. Sri Lanka never had such a movement.
” When the British ruled the country there was an opportunity to build a national liberation movement. Then after they left the country there was another opportunity to build such a movement. Our leaders of that day missed both those historic opportunities.
“Now we have a third opportunity which should be used without fail to defeat the corrupt ruling political class. For this purpose, all communities, North, East and South should be united. The aim of our national liberation struggle is to free the country from a corrupt political culture. Our first priority is to free the country from the corrupt e political elite that has been ruining the country for decades.” he explained.
Admitting that the NPP’s political work has been mainly among the Sinhalese people, Dissanayake appealed to the people of the North to join the national movement as an organic part of it.
The correspondent pointed out that even after nearly 15 years since the end of the civil war, a political solution is yet to be found and asked Dissanayake what message he would like to give to the Tamil people.
He replied that his party accepts that there are issues in the Tamil and Muslim communities regarding their linguistic rights, culture and participation in governance and added that these problems should be solved.
But he said nothing about devolution of power or the 13th Amendment which is highly controversial despite being part of the country’s constitution for 36 years.
Dissanayake, who is widely seen as a frontline candidate in the next Presidential election, should have made clear his movement’s current position on those issues. Many people would expect this.
The NPP’s ideal is to bring about social change in the country through a national liberation movement that would defeat the corrupt political elite and thereby find solutions to all the problems of the country including the ethnic problem.
The idea of finding solutions to problems through a national struggle that can bring together all communities is not a new one. It was the approach that the old traditional leftist parties put forward from the early part of the 20 th. century. But history has taught us that the main cause of their failure was their surrender to communal politics.
There was also a time when leftist leaders said that the ethnic problem (of minorities) would disappear in a socialist society that could be brought about by a working-class revolution encompassing all the communities.
Those leaders who started their political journey with the ideal of transforming the society eventually fell into a communal quagmire to survive in parliamentary politics and miserably failed in the end.
In the political history of the world, we have seen that leftist movements have been the natural and strong allies of the oppressed ethnic minorities. But in Sri Lanka the leftist parties did not play that progressive role after the first half of the last century when communal politics came to the fore.
Even the JVP, which has taken on a new avatar as NPP is no exception in this regard. The JVP has a negative history of resisting all attempts towards finding a political solution to the ethnic problem.
The Rajapaksa’s regime was supported by the JVP to carry out the civil war in full swing. They also masterminded the severing of the North-East merger.
Even in recent times, they have not changed their long standing position regarding the ethnic problem. Therefore it is inevitable for the Tamil people to look upon Dissanayake’s call as part of the JVP’s traditional stand in regard to all matters including the ethnic question.
Even after the experience of a brutal war, the JVP is not inclined to change its policy on the ethnic problem. NPP leaders often say that they should not be judged now on the basis of their past politics. Upon their realisation that it is not enough to mobilize people locally to come to power and that the support of the international community, especially its superpowers, is also necessary, they have made major changes in their position.
They justify their contemporary changes by saying that it is natural to change strategies to suit the changing international situation without compromising on fundamental principles.
In a recent interview given to ‘Sunday Times ‘ Dissanayake said that the NPP has changed to suit the new age and there is a difference between theory and reality.
The NPP which previously rejected international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Asian Development Bank as Western imperialist institutions, is now ready to work with them and has come forward to cooperate with the private sector, and welcome foreign investments.
Thus, its leaders, who have changed most of their positions, have not come forward to make any change regarding the ethnic problem. By simply asking the Tamil people to join the national movement, they cannot move an inch forward in winning over the confidence of the Tamil people.
Everyone knows how the NPP has behaved in the protests in the South earlier this year following President Wickremesinghe’s declaration of his willingness to fully implement the 13th Constitutional Amendment.
If the NPP had showed its willingness to support the President’s efforts to implement the 13 Amendment it could have sent a positive signal to the Tamil people that they were ready to make a change in their mind set in relation to the ethnic problem.
They also did not participate in the conferences of the parliamentary parties convened by the President thrice earlier this year.
It is well remembered that Dissanayake said last year in a seminar at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute that if the Tamils accept the 13th Amendment as a solution to their problem, NPP has no problem in supporting it.
However, seeing the opposition to the President’s announcement, he changed his stance as he felt that any comments he might make in favour of the amendment would be a setback to his party’s growing support among the Sinhalese people.
All that the leaders of the NPP say regarding a solution to the ethnic problem is a solution acceptable to all the communities of Sri Lanka which will be reflected in a new constitution. This is but a ploy to slip away from the problem at hand.
The policies and stances adopted by the JVP/National People’s Power so far on the ethnic issue have only helped strengthen hard line Sinhalese nationalist forces that refuse to accept even the minimal legitimate political aspirations of the minority communities.
Dissanayake should desist from behaving like the previous Sinhalese political leaders who ruined the country by supporting wrong causes for opportunistic political advantage and should tell those people about past political mistakes and the adverse consequences that arose from them.
Dissanayake should present himself as a leader who can bring about understanding in the Sinhalese people regarding the problems of the minority communities. The national liberation movement he envisages will never be complete unless the support that is said to be growing in the south for NPP today is wisely used to bring about such an understanding. Without such a healthy move, the national movement may end up as a movement for electoral purposes only.
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