For Sirajudin Mohamed Nishmi, wherever he may be

 

He was referred to as Nismi, although the name was Nishmi. Some may have used ‘sh’ instead of ’s’ but few, if any, knew his full name. Sirajudin Mohamed Nishmi. We don’t know how he spelled the name. Maybe it was ‘Nizmi.’

Anyway, he was an engineering student at the University of Peradeniya in the turbulent late-eighties. He was more than that. Or less, depending on your political and ideological persuasions.  A student leader. That cannot be disputed.  

Nishmi, by most accounts, is one of thousands ‘disappeared’ during the bheeshanaya. How it happened, where it happened and when it happened, we might never know. His story hasn’t been written either, although there are various accounts of that time which refer to his involvement.

He was the voice of what was at the time called the Action Committee of the university. This was a time when formal student councils didn’t exist or rather were not allowed to exist. Batches of all faculties ‘elected’ representatives. There were no formal elections. Someone would propose and someone else would second and that was all. Organised groups, such as students who were JVPers, would make sure that their ‘people’ by and large became batch-representatives and thereafter faculty-representatives. The Action Committees would decide for the general student body. These decisions, it was pretty clear, came ‘from the top,’ i.e. in alignment with the political interests of the party.

I don’t know if Nishmi was actually a member of the JVP student organisation, the Socialist Students Union. He bossed, in time, the Action Committee. This was sometime in 1987 or 1988. He was in the Engineering Faculty, as mentioned, and I was in the Arts Faculty. He was JVP and I was not. He was in the Action Committee, I was not. He was a student boss, I was just a student, just another recipient of boss-decisions.

Nishmi’s moment probably came after the then Convenor of the Inter University Student, Ranjithan Gunaratnam, ‘moved’ to the higher echelons of the party. That probably coincided with a long period of detention along with dozens of student activists in May 1987. Nishmi was charismatic. He was an excellent orator.

This became clear to me in December 1986 when he was one of two students, the other being Rev Athureliye Rathana Thero, who addressed students in the midst of a token boycott of lectures to commemorate the killing of a student at Peradeniya in 1976. It was the ‘Weerasooriya Commemoration,’ at which Prof Desmond Mallikaarachchi also spoke. All three were top notch speakers, Desmond of course being the one with greater substance and by quite a margin too. Nishmi was less fire than Rev Rathana Thero, but he touched hearts.

Two years later, then the universities reopened after several months, the Action Committee immediately declared a boycott and the entire student body at Peradeniya was asked to attend a meeting at the Medical Faculty. I can’t remember how long it lasted, but the meeting was moved to the gymnasium. That’s where I first witnessed Nishmi’s ability to sway an audience.  

After several months at home, students were not too keen on boycotting lectures. National politics obviously bled into the universities, but the general feeling was one of getting the exams over with and moving out. Nishmi changed all that. He spoke for two hours. Off the cuff. He was logical. He made sense. Of course this doesn’t mean that his analysis was spotless. He inserted ‘facts’ that were useful and left out those which would compromise his ‘line.’

At the end of it, someone came up with a ‘declaration’. It was read out and approved by a show of hands. A forest of hands, actually. I was in a corner. I know I didn’t raise my hand. I know that Dhammika Amarakoon who was standing next to me didn’t either. We were not noticed. We didn’t count. From then onwards it was ‘everyone for the student movement,’ never mind that ‘student movement’ was nothing but a front for the JVP. Those who didn’t go along, went home. Those who remained but objected went silent.

That year, 1987, and the following one too, stretched. The universities were either closed or when open lectures were boycotted. I didn’t see Nishmi much, except at the WUS canteen or thereabouts because the room occupied (probably illegally) by the Action Committee was nearby. But one day he did make the long climb up to Marcus Fernando Hall. I was surprised that he knew me and even more surprised that he had come to speak with me.

We were playing cricket. He knew I was an English medium student. He started talking about ‘The English Medium,’ and I cut him off, explaining that I just happened to be studying in English and that I didn’t really identify with the political leanings of that particular segment of students. Then he cut me off, saying that this was not what he was talking about.

Nishmi simply said that ‘we’ (I think he meant ‘the student movement’ but was generous enough, at least in his mind, to include me) should get the English medium students involved in student politics. We spoke briefly. He needed to mobilise students. Recruitment was probably second-nature to him. It was not my thing. But I was struck by his persistence and his charm. Nishmi had a winning smile; more winning than his rhetoric.

Nishmi got lost in a revolution that was lost before it began, at least according to my analysis. The defeat of the JVP didn’t make me sad. The victory of the most tyrannical regime we have known since Independence didn’t make me happy either. I just thought of those who were killed for no reason at all. Many were innocent. Nishmi was not, at least not to the extent that the party he belonged to was not. I like to think that his intentions were honourable, but I have no way of telling.

All I know is that I was sad, even though I did not know the details of his fate. There were others like that. Is it because he was known and I had the opportunity to speak a few words with him? I don’t know. But he was among the better men in our student days.

A friend who too belonged to the party told me that he had once met someone who looked like Nishmi. That person had Nishmi’s signature half-grin, he said. He had merely tapped my friend and said ‘Malayaa..’ Acknowledgment, and nothing more.

What happened to Nishmi? Maybe he is still alive, using a different name, doing things very different from those that were bread and butter for his activist avatar. Time can change a lot of things. Maybe I might be less inclined to be positive about Nishmi, who can tell? I give him the benefit of the doubt.  

He comes to mind off and on. And I wonder what went wrong. That time, those people, myself, the circumstances; we cannot bring it all back and do it right. But we are in this time. We could do better. Nishmi would, I tell myself.

This article was first published in the Daily News under the weekly column title 'The Recurrent Thursday.' 

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. malindadocs@gmail.com

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#Aragalayaleft?

‘Left’ in internet parlance refers, apparently, to an individual who has withdrawn from a group, for example one on WhatsApp created for like-minded people or those who share some common attribute (for example being a member of a particular sports team or a political collective). It can also be used, by extension, to refer to something that was but is no more. It is in this sense that we need to discuss the proposition, ‘#aragalayaleft?’ In other words, what happened to the agitation/protests or the ‘aragalaya?’ Is it still on? Is it done? Does it exist in the trappings and not substance? Such are the issues that we discuss here.

Outside of the diehards, it is clearly apparent that the aragalaya is not what it was or what it was meant to be or what its adherents made it out to be. GGG (Gotagotama) still exists, but few would insist that the spirit pervading the territory in the month of April and the first weeks of May is intact.

Perhaps this is partly because ‘aragalaya’ is associated with a mis-written address. After all, the anxiety, fear, anger etc., that spilled out of the household and workplace didn’t flow all the way to the GGG from all parts of the country. GGG was seen or understood as a proxy or focal point, yes. People from all parts of the country did go there and many camped out for a few days or more, yes. However, for obvious reasons GGG could not hold all the agitators nor all agitation. The agitation still exists of course. The root causes haven’t been sorted out.

On the other hand, after the May 9th incident and its aftermath, several factors came into play. First and foremost the Prime Minister tendered his resignation. The aragalists, having focused on an individual and a family, found the political rug pulled from under their feet. True, some did talk of system-change, but that was almost an afterthought or footnote. Revenge for perceived wrongs dominated the aragala discourse and the voices of those who say personality and party as expressions of system-failure were drowned in the cheers and jeers calling out for blood and beheading. It was clear that the anger was directed towards a political family/clan. It is clear that Mahinda Rajapaksa symbolised this family/clan and all the ills associated with it. When they announced #mahindaleft it was a hefty consolation prize.

Then there was the systematic violence in response to the attack on GGG by goons who set off from Temple Trees. The aragalists and the aragalaya lost much ground then and there. It is one thing to fight in self-defence and quite another to systematically target enemies, engage in arson and looting, perpetrating thuggery and murder. What was lost at that point was the moral high ground: those who engaged in such activity did so in the name of the aragalaya, called themselves aragalists and there was hardly a whimper of protest from those in the aragalaya who did not condone such acts.

More seriously, the non-political claims of the aragalaya (as in ‘not belonging to or being led by established political parties/organizations’) were proven to be idle boasts. There were JVP thugs at GGG; Sajith Premadasa was attacked, Anura Kumara Dissanayake was not. Sunil Handunnetti openly condoned arson, looting, thuggery and murder. Lalkantha did not justify it, but he acknowledged that the JVP called all party units in all parts of the country out on to the streets immediately after the attack on GGG. It’s not hard to connect the dots.

Was the JVP the heart, so to speak, of GGG? Many would say ‘no’ or ‘no way’ and they wouldn’t be lying. However, there was and there still is a JVP presence in GGG, a village they claim, but one now wrapped in fading and faded colours (little is left of the initial enthusiasm, the overflowing of love, camaraderie and a collective desire to recreate a nation of different and more wholesome colours).

Who stole the colours of GGG, then? Who robbed the perfumes? As mentioned above, part of the explanation has to be the fact that the agitation was directed at personalities and not systems. Part of it is the dilemma of any spontaneous uprising made of multiple voices — when it comes to synthesising all interests into cogent, pragmatic demands, there’s dissonance. What came out was pretty bland — mostly regurgitation of old and tired slogans, calls for the obvious and demands for constitutional amendments that clearly indicated absolute ignorance of constitutional content and process.

Part of it is the vile (yes, vile) intentions of the JVP. The JVP initially pooh-poohed the Aragalaya (‘We are not interested in fatherless agitation,’ they said). They were arrogant (‘We will give the leadership that the Aragalaya needs,’ they said). The JVP tried to make political profit out of the aragalaya; Harini Amarasuriya was aghast that Ranil Wickremesinghe, the sole UNP MP, was made Prime Minister but saw nothing wrong in the leader of her party wanting to be President (first PM subject to Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation and then using the inside track to the Executive Presidency), even though his party polled just 3%. And for reasons best known to them perhaps deliberately or unwittingly, the JVP showered body-blows on the aragalaya, robbing it of its integrity and moral superiority by indulging in violence.  

Of course change is not an overnight phenomenon. Neither is it fair to demand that aragalists deliver paradise here and now. Sugath Kulatunga in an FB post generously suggests, ‘probably the aragalaya is a learning process.’ That it certainly is and this is why hope should not be retired. Setbacks are scripted into any revolutionary process. Debacles are also inevitable. However, advancement is predicated among other things on identifying and insuring the struggle against the most pernicious type of enemy, he/she who comes wearing the uniform of agitation, waving agitational banners and assuming he/she has some kind of right to lead. In this instance, the JVP is the most prominent of this tribe.

Kulatunga’s generosity came with some home truths which warrant retelling:

‘System-change is the current buzzword or a mantra chanted by many people including intellectuals. The Galle Face Aragalaya also claims that the struggle is for a systems change. But their 8 demands do not spell systems change. The changes they demand are within the prevailing system. For instance if Gota goes there will be another President. Others like an interim government and amendments to the Constitution are within the current system. Fair and independent elections are provided in the present law. A systems change focuses on the causes, rather than the symptoms. A definition of system change explains that it encompasses taking a holistic (or ‘systemic’) view of required transformations in the policies, practices, power dynamics, social norms or mindsets that underlie the societal issue at stake. Aragalaya demands are neither radical nor revolutionary. They concern only on some adjustments in the prevailing system and do not address the underlying social issues.’

The JVP is not for system-change. Neither is the IMF for that matter. In fact the JVP and the IMF are integral parts of the system (that clearly requires transformation). Maybe the aragalaya will save itself from such fake aragalists. The true aragalaya is never evicted or buried. It finds different addresses, learns from errors, becomes more circumspect and emerges even more radiant and strong. That aragalaya is no longer resident in GGG. It has left. In essence. 

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A season of (il)legitimacies 

The brink and beyond

Spontaneity and its discontents 

ලෙයට ලෙය වෙනුවට ආලය

පුද්ගල චරිත මතුවේ, නිර්පාක්ෂික හැව ගැලැවේ, අරගලය ඉදිරියටම....

The BASL Proposals: A review

 

 
malindadocs@gmail.com

[Malinda Seneviratne is the Director/CEO of the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute. These are his personal views.]

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‘Elpitiya’ as beginning and end

Elections to every single local government authority in the Galle District were held on February 10, 2018. Except Elpitiya. That was due to a petition by the United National Party (UNP) pleading relief over perceived error in their nomination list being rejected. Time passed. We had the parliamentary crisis at the end of that year. We had the Easter Sunday attacks a few months ago. Even people who were aware of that election or rather non-election forgot about Elpitiya. 

Not any longer. With the court directing the Elections Commission to hold elections for the Elpitiya Pradeshiya Sabhava immediately, we are seeing a rehearsal, a by-election of sorts and a referendum all rolled into one.  

Here’s what happened. The yahapalanaya regime went into strange contortions to postpone local government elections. Well, provincial councils too, but that’s another story. By the time elections were called, the yahapalana coalition had cracked. Corruption, nepotism and incompetence had become too apparent to hide. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) was the clear victor. President Sirisena’s true strength was revealed (the Sri Lanka Freedom Party [SLFP] got less than 15% of the vote and the UNP’s vote bank had dwindled to around 30%. 

The outlook for the yahapalana group is bleak. The SLFP or rather Maithripala Sirisena would be forced to take a stand, i.e. whether to enter into a coalition with the SLPP, tag itself to the UNP (or a faction of that party led by Sajith Premadasa, if the internal crisis is not resolved) or go it alone. Unenviable. The JVP was not officially a member of the yahapalana coalition, but stood with Sirisena and later the UNP against Mahinda Rajapaksa and later the SLFP-SLPP ‘arrangement’ during the parliamentary crisis a year ago. The JVP has decided to do their own thing this time around. The risk is their strength being revealed, but it’s a risk they’ve embraced, for better or worse.  

The UNP has spared no pains to paint President Sirisena as the villain of the piece called ‘Yahapalanaya.’ The UNP is still ‘government’. It is not opposition. It had mandate and responsibility. The UNP failed to deliver on all counts. The UNP is directly implicated in nepotism and corruption. The UNP marked itself as ‘incompetent.’ Ranil Wickremesinghe is the leader of this incompetent and corrupt UNP and Sajith Premadasa his lieutenant — no one can claim ‘I was a peon’ in the yahapalana regime.   

All these parties fared abysmally in February 2018. The SLPP secured 50.57% of the total vote in the Galle District, the UNP got 26.65%, the UPFA got 11.65% and the JVP 6.27%. 

The numbers may have changed. For the worse. Impatience with the regime may have enhanced rather than declined disenchantment for reasons of incompetence, incoherence and of course the scandalous failures on the security/intelligence front that led to the Easter Sunday attacks. There’s a strong likelihood that most of the 75,827 votes the UPFA received would slide towards the SLPP if the SLFP decides not to contest or have a pact with the UPFA. Even if the SLFP contests on its own, it is highly unlikely that it will retain the 11.65% share of February 2018. That could be halved or worse with ‘defection’ to the SLPP. 

And so we have ‘Elpitiya’. Is Elpitiya a microcosm of Sri Lanka? No. The Tamil and Muslim communities are negligible in Elpitiya. They won’t be in the Northern and Eastern Provinces and in certain other parts of the country.  A UNP presidential candidate might be routed in Elpitiya (or in the Southern Province as a whole) but might win in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, although with a smaller margin than in 2015. 

Elpitiya is rural. Whereas the SLPP handsomely won all the pradesheeya sabhas in the Galle District, the UNP secured the Galle Municipal Council. In fact the UNP did better in the urban and municipal council elections than in the pradesheeya sabha elections in all parts of the country. 

This dissimilarity between the perceived urban and perceived rural gets smudged in important elections. For example, the tendency across the board was against the UNP in 1994 and clearly against Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2015. In 2019, we might once again see a ‘unity’ of sorts between the urban and rural in terms of a common need to show the yahapalanists the political door.  

Regardless of these realities, the result will most certainly reflect voter sentiment. It will be read by the victor as a reflection of national sentiments, especially if the SLPP wins as expected. The losers would be forced to come up with elaborate statistical analyses to demonstrate that things could be different in a presidential race. Nevertheless, a rout in Elpitiya would severely demoralize, say, the UNP loyalist in Elpitiya-like electorates throughout the country and even in less Elpitiya-like places. The ‘urban’ areas, for example. It would cost the UNP candidate, whoever it may be.  Elpitiya, in short, would not only be read as ‘reflection’ of general sentiment, but would be a momentum giver and wrecker, to winner and loser(s) respectively. 

The SLPP is ready, obviously. The JVP always has its ‘people’ on the ground. The loyalists will vote as they always do, never mind that they have struggled to win over people outside the party. The SLFP’s identity crisis (migrate to the SLPP, play bystander, contest?) will be resolved, one way or the other, but the outcome is unlikely to propel the party into believing that fielding its own candidate makes any sense. The UNP will have to contest.

The UNP will have to decide on who will lead the party’s efforts in Elpitiya. Will Sajith be asked to ‘put out or shut up’? Will the party have resolved the candidate-issue by then? It is not an election that the UNP wants to contest, but it is an election the party cannot avoid. If the UNP loses by a small margin there will be positives to carry to the presidential election. Ranil (or Sajith or both) could spur the loyalists to work harder. If they lose by a margin similar to that of February 2018 and the party can obtain the consolation argument, ‘we have not lost ground.’ However, if the margin of defeat is greater than those related to the other pradesheeya sabha elections in the Galle District, the UNP will have to stomach ‘done and dusted’.  

Obviously, the SLPP cannot sit on February 2018 laurels either. If there’s gain, that locks up the presidential prize and if there’s the slightest decline, then it means the fat lady is yet to sing.  

Either way, Elpitiya could very well be the place where the presidential election begins and ends. For all these parties. 

malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com   

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Sophomoric legislators cannot fix constitutional flaws

Constitutional reforms is a serious business, whether it is an amendment or a new document altogether. Even ordinary bills and acts of parliament are serious affairs. Such things require lawmakers, the Attorney General’s Department, the judiciary and the general public to act with sobriety and responsibility.  

The basic premise of any new piece of legislation is that whatever exists is insufficient or flawed. That, however, is just one reason for attempting correction. It is (too) easy to use the horrendously flawed Second Republican Constitution (of 1978) as an excuse for (any old) amendment. ‘It can’t get worse’ is tired, silly and unethical reasoning for the simple reason that it (indeed!) can (get worse)!

Just think of all the amendments since 1978. Lawmakers didn’t exactly cover themselves with glory in those exercises. The most recent was the 19th Amendment. From draft to legislation makes a case for how not to engage in constitutional tinkering. The Supreme Court shot holes in the draft. The lawmakers did not amend the draft but almost rewrote it, leaving contradictions and grey areas. It was a shortsighted and mischievous piece of legislation, to put it mildly. Let us just mention, in passing, the following: a) presidential powers to dissolve parliament, b) the appointment and removal of the prime minister, c) the notion of a national government to circumvent limitations on cabinet-size, and d) a politician-heavy constitutional council which effectively mangled the idea of ‘independence’ in related institutions. 

Since the Supreme Court determination on dissolution, there’s two documents before Parliament. First, the (new) 20th Amendment tabled by the JVP seeking to abolish the Executive Presidency, and secondly a new constitution, as per a TNA need, based on recommendations by the so-called committee of ‘experts’.  

The merits and demerits of both exercises can be debated. Obviously, the second would make the first irrelevant. But what’s crucial to understand here is the fact that this parliament has proved beyond a shadow of doubt that it is incompetent when it comes to its fundamental purpose — law-making. 

The Parliament made a mess of electoral reform, in effect replacing the existent proportional representation system with another proportional representation system, despite the rhetoric to the contrary! Today, across the political spectrum, people seem to have resigned themselves to reverting to the previous system, which each and every one of them deemed to be flawed, made for thuggery, the movement of vast sums of money and other ills.  

We saw how they went about with the 19th Amendment. The proposed 20th Amendment shows how shortsighted and silly the JVP is, since it seeks the abolition of the executive presidency without accounting for the dangers of such an eventuality given the existence of the 13th Amendment (which moreover was constituted in the most undemocratic manner). 

Now we have the ‘new constitution’ circus. The JVP has opposed it. Sections of the ruling coalition, especially the JHU, has objected to it. The TNA, as expected, whines about people being ‘political’ — as though politics is something absolutely alien to that party! The chances of a new constitution, therefore, are slim. That’s not something bad, even though the current constitution simply cries out for replacement. ‘Not bad’ because we just cannot trust this Parliament to do anything right regardless of intentions, which too they have taught us not to trust.  

However, there is the danger of this utterly sophomoric set of legislators hoodwinking the masses by leaving intact articles whose repeal could spell trouble while surreptitiously inserting others that make those very same articles irrelevant (just like the articles pertaining to dissolution in the 19th Amendment). They can retain terms and notion (e.g. ‘unitary’ and ‘foremost status of Buddhism’) and throw in things that make them meaningless. They can’t make decent laws but they seem to be experts at the indecent end of things.  

The question is simple: considering that this set of parliamentarians have demonstrated incompetence, proved they are either hooligans or have directly or indirectly sanctioned hooliganism, that electorally, the UNP, SLFP and JVP (making up a majority) have lost their standing and even legitimacy in the eyes of the voting public, and have abused power in numerous ways, can we and should we trust them with tinkering with the constitution? The answer is pretty obvious: No!  

The constitution needs to be changed, yes, but not by these people. We just cannot trust them to do anything right. We cannot trust them to ensure that the sovereignty of the people is kept intact. 

We can trust them to do just the opposite. 

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malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com

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The reds, greens and the seasonality of colors

Prof Michael Dear, Professor Emeritus in the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley, and Honorary Professor in the Bartlett School of Planning at University College, London, once taught a class on postmodernism in the Geography Department, University of Southern California.  

At the end of the semester, he asked people where they believe they are now located ideologically.   Most said ‘postmodernism’. Kanishka Goonewardena, then doing fieldwork for his PhD dissertation and was auditing that class, said ‘Marxist’. 

‘Is that a confession?’ Michael, who was always good-humored, asked.

‘It is a confession and a threat!’ Kanishka was good at repartee.   

There are statements that cut both ways, ‘watermelon’ for instance. Those who are opposed to both environmentalists and socialists or anyone who is not saying ‘hooray’ to capitalism accuse the ‘greens’ of being watermelons, green on the outside and red within.  

Some ‘greens’ who believe that environmental issues are not just about saving fauna and flora but are inextricably linked to broader economic, social and political matters, say it with pride: ‘yes, we are watermelons, green outside and red inside.’

This is not about watermelons, although it is about greens and reds. Green as in UNPers (those of or loyal to the United National Party) and red as in self-labeled leftists or liberals who take up what used to traditionally ‘left causes’ or even ‘deep reds’ if you will.  The ‘reds’ would include the political parties/groups that have no qualms about affiliating with the UNP or the SLFP and contesting with one of these parties in a coalition or supporting their presidential candidates. For example, the Communist Party, the LSSP, NSSP, the United Socialist Alliance, other splinter groups, the JVP and the plethora of trade unions. 

Included too are those political itinerants who form clubs every now and again, especially when elections are at hand, under fancy names such as ‘aluth parapura’ (new generation) and ‘purawesi balaya' (citizens’ power), ranting and raving over injustice and tyranny only to fall silent once those they back kick justice and democracy in their proverbial behinds. 

Greens, on the other hand, are more settled, politically. Those who are not card carrying members are wont to desist from criticizing the party, whether it is in power or not, or at worst only offer ‘constructive criticism’ to ‘make it better’. The UNP is of course faulted now and then, but then again with a bunch of caveats. At best, a bit of tokenism smeared with liberal doses of badmouthing ‘the other guys’.  

I heard the most interesting observation about the political vacillation of greens and reds just the other day from a friend who insisted, ‘don’t quote me’ as in ‘don’t mention my name’. So, I am not taking credit for this gem: ‘the reds are red until they get something, then they are green.’ My two cents: ‘and the greens become red when they are in the Opposition’.  

Sure there are exceptions, for the most part individuals disillusioned with parties they were members of, living frugal and principled lives. As for parties, one can think of some of the Trotskyite groups such as the Socialist Equality Party (previously knows as the Revolutionary Communist League. Apart from this, reds transition from revolutionary to democratic socialists to socialist democrats, conditional supporters of bourgeois parties to the parties themselves, either through membership or open support.      

There’s no need to name too many names (and there are many) but the following comment by the late Raja Gunasekara illustrates the point. It happened at his residence when he agreed to represent a group of 14 or 15 young people in a fundamental rights application. He read all the affidavits which I had drafted under the guidance of Sanath Jayatilaka. He was most impressed by the one describing the history of political engagement of Champika Ranawaka. 

And the comment: ‘I only hope he doesn’t end up in the UNP. I remember listening to Mahinda Wijesekera when he was young. So eloquent. He was thinking on his feet. Look what happened to him!’

‘Look what’s happened to a lot of people!’ is the obvious extrapolation.  That’s if one attaches some intrinsic value to ‘Left,’ a highly debatable point when you strip eloquence from action and consequence. 

My friends contention, however, is interesting. There are JVPers, for example, who ‘graduated’ literally and metaphorically after the insurrection of 1971 failed, and moved out of the party and into various action-groups (the term ‘NGO’ was to arrive about a decade later). We are talking about those who wanted to retain the ‘left’ badge and not those who abandoned the social project altogether (they were branded and castigated as counter-revolutionaries, renegades, opportunists and so on). Some started newspapers. Some took on projects: environment, women’s rights, conflict resolution, peace activism, sustainable/alternative development and of course human rights. Businesses, for the most part.  

When they wanted to be seen as ‘left’ in more tangible form, they would issue statements in support of or in line with the JVP and of late the Frontline Socialist Party. Whether they vote for these parties, we don’t know. By and large they’ve backed either the SLFP or the UNP with the support extended depending on the rewards obtained or anticipated.  

If the chosen party looks like it is being defeated at a major election, they slide to the other side or if they’ve misread the temper of the electorate and have backed the loser they re-acquire a bit of redness.  

The UNP is the unabashed right wing party of the country.  It is the party under whose watch and with its active participation or tacit support the worst human rights violations took place: the riots of 1983, the bloodbath that took 60,000 lives towards the end of the same decade and the worst human rights violations in the ‘ethnic conflict’ (among all governments from 1983-2009). 

And yet, when in the opposition, the UNP changes its ideological color. It’s sometimes a whitish pink, at times pink and can and has turned various shades of red. Those who said nothing when the UNP governments oversaw the bashing of heads, proxy arrests, abduction, torture and extra-judicial killings of both Sinhala and Tamil youth all of a sudden get upset over the police baton-charging or tear-gassing protesting students. 

The party which was once led by a man who promised to retire the electoral map for ten years, who obtained undated letters of resignation from all Members of Parliament representing the party and rigged election after election including one which illegally extended the life of an elected Parliament by six years, gets all democracy-fixated when in the Opposition.  Indeed, when it comes to freedom of expression, democracy, accountability, transparency and such, the curtailers of freedom, the Bonapartists, the corrupt and abusers of all rights, go red. As in ‘Left’. But only when in the Opposition.  

And the blues?  A home to reds who lap up benefits (just like the UNP), the SLFP is essentially a poor cousin of the UNP and the JVP.  They are neither deep red nor deep green. They go reddish in Opposition and greenish when in power, at least since 1977. They have, for decades, accommodated so many reds in coalitions (the UNP only had tacit support from the JVP and then again, not for a UNP candidate but candidates backed by the UNP) and their own ‘progressives’ (e.g. T.B. Illangaratne and Hector Kobbekaduwa) were more red than the official reds (those of the CP and LSSP) that the ideological color has for decades been purplish. 

Things of course went crazy when Maithripala Sirisena became President and dragged the party into the yahapalana arrangement with the UNP. Sirisena himself doesn’t seem to be sure if he’s part of the government or the opposition. Indeed, there are times when he talks as though the UNP is in power and he in the opposition and vice versa. 

Such things aside, it’s the green-red switch that says most about the nature and fate of the ‘left movement’ in the country.  Anura Kumara and the JVP are lampooned as red-greens or baby elephants in red docilely doing the bidding of the UNP pachyderm.  The biggest of the red parties, the JVP, had no qualms about taking dollars from Washington or rather syphoning bucks doled out with Sarath Fonseka’s campaign; but then again the late nineties was also marked by bank robberies and ransom.    

The operations of the party-less reds are the most hilarious. They talk the red talk but are happy to walk the green walk. Sure, they’ll justify it with a lot of red rhetoric or rather watered down red rhetoric; they will never object to capitalism and the miseries it spawns. It’s easy because they are classless reds, meaning they’ve established color-changing credentials and qualified for benefits by abandoning the class project. 

All things considered the greens are an insult to the larger greens (those concerned with the health of the planet) and the reds have embarrassed the larger reds (those committed to class struggle).  We have reds who, when scratched will turn green (or blue-greens if that variety is in power). We have greens who when scratched (read, ‘when in opposition’) won’t necessarily bleed but will blush just enough to be mistaken for decent citizens concerned about justice, integrity, good governance, democracy etc.  

What color are humbugs, I wonder. 

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Constitutional Reform Poisons: Personalities, Parties and Outcome-Preferences

The Yahapalanists have forgotten this version of the 20th Amendment 

In April 2015 just three months after he assumed leadership of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), President Maithripala Sirisena addressing a party rally at Viharamahadevi Park vowed that the he would get the 20th Amendment passed. 

He was referring to promised legislation that would completely overhaul the proportional representation system which, according to many, was responsible for election violence, high campaign costs made it next to impossible for those without bucks or patronage to contest and in the end made representation a farce.  

Never happened.  Amendments to the Local Government Act was also a farce with the promised ‘mixed system’ being effectively subverted by an equation which ensured that there would be 100% proportional representation.  Similar changes with respect to provincial council elections has been in the Parliament’s back burner since March, even though three provincial councils ended their terms last September and three more are to wind up this September.  

The results of the local government elections in February 2018 have complicated matters, politically.  Having been roundly defeated, the losers have expressed misgivings about the ‘new system’. Some have said that it’s best to go back to the old system.  That’s essentially saying that since the solution wasn’t robust enough let’s drop it altogether without looking to fix it.  

The 20th Amendment is back in the news. No, that the one that Sirisena engaged in chest-beating, but a move by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) to abolish the Executive Presidency.  

That was an election promise, some may remember. Back then Maithripala Sirisena said he would be a one-term president. He reiterated a commitment to abolishing the Executive Presidency at the funeral of Ven Madoluwawe Sobitha Thera, one of the leading figures in bringing Sirisena to power and an ardent advocate of the same.  

Later, Sirisena sought the opinion of the Supreme Court regarding his term, i.e. whether it would be for five or six years. Court said ‘five’ as per the 19th Amendment. Still later, the man who said he would retire after finishing his term said he won’t retire ‘because the work is not yet done.’  That’s presidential talk, folks.  

The United National Party (UNP) has not really talked of the 20th Amendment, not electoral reform nor the abolishing of the Executive Presidency.  Instead, party stalwarts have said that their leader, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe would be the UNP candidate at the next presidential election.  

The Joint Opposition has not called for the abolition of the Executive Presidency, but some have said that such a move would be supported if provision is made to amend the 19th Amendment to have Parliament dissolved immediately.

Let’s see what kind of scenario would unfold in the event the Executive Presidency is abolished without coincident electoral reform.  

Considering that an unchanged electoral system is unlikely to give any single political party an absolute parliamentary majority and therefore a coalition government is inevitable, considering that as per the 19th Amendment any coalition government would most likely call itself a ‘national government’ to satisfy the ministerial greed of coalition partners and that this would inevitably produce a jumbo cabinet, we would have political instability and an inflated executive branch (the cabinet).  

Remember that the 13th Amendment still stands, never mind it was thrust down a quiescent president by an arrogant and expansionist Indian Prime Minister who bragged ‘this is the beginning of the Bhutalization of Sri Lanka’.  In such a context, a Sri Lanka with an unstable government and lacking an Executive President will not make a pretty picture (not that the present state of affairs is all rosy of course!).  

One can make the argument that promises made should be kept. If they can’t do it all, we can argue, they should deliver on a few at least.  If not in 100 days, then we can say ‘better late than never’.  However it was a comprehensive package of reform that was promised and not a piecemeal effort that is informed less by correcting systemic flaws than by political expedience.

For example, consider the argument that Thisaranee Gunasekera has made for the abolition of the Executive Presidency in last the ‘Lankadeepa’.  It’s not about election promises. It’s not about re-democratizing Sri Lanka by making inroads into J.R. Jayewardene’s centralizing and draconian constitution of 1978. It is purely about preferred political outcomes or rather antipathy to possible political outcomes.

Thisaranee has concluded that the Yahapalana government is in dire straits. She’s hinted at the distinct possibility that there’s no way that any candidate from either the SLFP or the UNP (meaning Maithripala Sirisena, Ranil Wickremesinghe or any of the top names in either party) can hope to defeat Gotabhaya Rajapaksa at a presidential election. For this reason, i.e. given her fear of Gotabhaya and her antipathy to the current government, Thisaranee advocates the abolishing of the Executive Presidency.

Now Rajapaksa has not declared candidacy yet. However, going by the virulent attacks on the man by the Yahapalanists they are anticipating that he will contest. In fact they are unwittingly raising his profile. It’s as though the Yahapalanists have been contracted to do Gotabhaya’s image-building campaign.  

The obvious fear of facing even a provincial council election shows that the Yahapalanists are on the political backfoot, so to speak.  Having been brought to power to combat nepotism, corruption, outright theft, cronyism and abuse of state resources, the Yahapalanists have been doing what the previous regime did and about which they ranted, raved and frequently howled. There’s one difference though. They have proved that they are a can’t-do and won’t-do bunch. Incompetent, in a word.  No wonder that they fear elections. 

If Gotabhaya seems to be the probably adversary in a presidential election it makes sense that they fear him, not for his alleged tyrannical ways (not that this lot are lambs of course, considering political histories and associations, indulgence and complicity in all kinds of tyrannies), but for the threat he poses to their political futures.  What’s probably closer to the truth is that any candidate put forward by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has as decent a chance as Gotabhaya to best either Sirisena or Wickremesinghe.  If Provincial Council elections are held, the results will no doubt see the SLPP gain more ground while the UNP will decline and the SLFP slide even more.  In other words it will make a Sirisena candidacy a joke, result in the entire SLFP being absorbed by the SLPP and demoralize the UNP supporter to the point that he/she will be a highly reluctant activist come election time.  

All this is politics. Constitutional reform, however, should not be about the urgent anxieties or gung-ho of politicians. When we consider constitutional reform, we should not assess the worth in terms of our preferences or antipathy to immediate beneficiaries. Indeed, the better rule of thumb would be to imagine a situation where someone or some party that we have no truck with benefitting.  

For example, when Mahinda Rajapaksa sought to do away with term limits for the president through the 18th Amendment, the Rajapaksa loyalist should not have thought ‘well, it’s Mahinda who will benefit, so I am fine with it.’  Rather, he/she should have asked him/herself ‘what if it was Ranil or someone like Prabhakaran who was to be the immediate beneficiary?’  

It’s the same with the 20th Amendment that the JVP has tabled.  Thisaranee’s logic is for the politically sophomoric, those who are invested in party and personality, those who are thinking about their political fortunes. Constitutional reform is a far more serious business. 

Whether the Executive Presidency is to be kept or done away with has to be considered within the larger framework of the functions of a constitution; i.e. whether or not such a move makes sense when taking into account other elements of the constitution, the synergies that are either strengthened or wrecked, the fallout, the marginal benefits and the marginal costs and so on.  

Constitutional reform, the abolishing or pruning or keeping of the Executive Presidency included, should not be about the effect such changes as may be brought about on Ranil Wickremesinghe, Maithripala Sirisena, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa or anyone else or any political party or coalition. It has to make sense in terms of enhancing democracy, meaningful representation, governability, political stability, an institutional arrangement that guarantees transparency and accountability and an improvement of the wellbeing of the citizenry.  

The abolishing of the Executive Presidency has been talked of since 1978.  We have seen a lot of lip-servicing.  A lot of chest-beating.  There’s been very little by way of sober consideration of what could be called the basic functions of a constitution, which we’ve alluded to above.  

Fear-mongering only indicates that those who are calling for the abolishing of the Executive Presidency are irresponsible and utterly anti-intellectual.   

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. malindasenevi@gmail.com. Twitter: malindasene.  

  

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Wimal Weerawansa’s political presence

Wimal Weerawansa is under arrest. The Financial Crimes Investigations Division (FCID) holds that Wimal abused privileges, especially with respect to the use of vehicles.  He is also charged with outright corruption and nepotism regarding the distribution of houses constructed by the government while he was the Minister of Construction, Engineering Services, Housing and Common Amenities in the previous government.  The National Freedom Front (NFF) which Wimal heads, contends he is innocent.  The jury is still out on the legality of the FCID, but this notwithstanding the matter is now in court.  Court will decide.  

Wimal was arrested even as his party was getting ready to hold its convention.  Perhaps the arrest was timed well, politically, the party alleges.  Wimal, after all, is the voice, the personality and all but the party.  One notes that such machinations are not uncommon in Sri Lanka and that the yahapalanists have amply demonstrated that they too are (happy) creatures of a pernicious political culture that has hardly suffered a dent since January 8, 2015.  

The man first entered the political imagination of the country as a journalist.  He was then Wimalasiri Gamlath, writing to ‘Lakdiva’ which evolved into the key media platform of the then proscribed JVP.  He was one of several pro-JVP writers who left that newspaper and launched ‘Hiru’.  It was his lines, in print and those thundered from political platforms, that wide-eyed young people, especially from the universities, lapped up and later mouthed to would-be followers.  

I remember the first time I heard him speak.  This was in 1994, shortly before the General Election.   I was, along with a few others, selling the monthly newspaper put out by a group called ‘Janatha Mithuro’.  We were selling ‘Asipatha’ at the Goodshed bus stand.  Wimal, at the same time, was speaking at a rally at Bogambara.  

While the JVP activists had been extremely silent in the aftermath of the 1988-89 bheeshanaya, it was those involved with the Janatha Mithuro and the Jathika Chinthanaya who talked politics in the universities.  It might even be said that these elements paved the way for the JVP to make a come-back in the universities.  Wimal said it differently.

‘Galivar nidaagena iddi liliputtan tikak ekathu vela sadda daanava’ (some Lilliputians are making noise while Gulliver is asleep).  

Gulliver, to Wimal, was of course the JVP.   Even back then it was clear that Wimal had a way with words.  In 2010 April, after the UPFA had rolled over all opposition at the General Election, Wimal, addressing a media conference put it succinctly: ‘ratata aadare kattiyata rata giyaa, badata aadare kattiyata bada giyaa’ (‘the country went to those who loved the country, and those who loved their stomachs were inflicted with diarrhea’ playing on the Sinhala word ‘bada’, meaning stomach and therefore the term, literally, ‘stomach went’ or ‘suffered purging’).

Rhetoric was his thing, and not always substance.  A collection of parliamentary speeches titled ‘Garu Kathaanaayakathumani…’ (Honorable Speaker….), another lovely heading by the way, could be described as wordy or alternately ‘fluff’.  Fluff, however, sells.  Wimal was a good salesman.  He was a crowd-puller.  People came to hear him speak.  This is why he was usually asked to make the final speech at major rallies organized by the JVP or by the UPFA when the JVP was the junior partner of that coalition which was led by the SLFP and included several smaller parties such as the CP, LSSP, MEP and DVJP (during the 2004 Parliamentary Election and the 2005 Presidential Election).  This ensured that the crowds would remain until the end.

There’s a story that a parliament reporter related to me way back in 2007 when the final vote on Budget 2008 was taken.  It was a tense moment.  Anura Banadaranaike had crossed over to the Opposition.  It was a given that the TNA and UNP would vote ‘nay’.  Thondaman’s CWC was not ‘in the bag’.  It was a critical moment.  Minister who had just attended a media briefing on cabinet decisions at the Department of Government Information and were sipping tea in the office of the then Director General Anusha Palpita, had grave faces.  Wasantha Ramanayake, who ‘rose’ after Maithripala Siriesna became President but gave the impression of loyalty to the then President, insisted that Parliament should be dissolved.  This was just before the vote was taken.  The JVP held the key.  If the JVP had voted against the budget, it would not pass.

The said reporter said that when the name of the first JVP member of the UPFA was called up, he had looked at Wimal and what was probably a pre-arranged signal had been given.  The JVP abstained.  Had they stood with the Opposition, it could very well have precipitated an unfolding of political events which among other things may have not given us the ‘result’ of May 2009.  Ravi Karunanayake was livid and expressed frustrations by banging on his desk with both hands.  Anura Bandaranaike immediately left the house, hotly followed by Arjuna Ranatunga who was trying to pacify the broken man.

Wimal could be called the signal-giving agent of the JVP for that particular moment, but at the time he was quite the mover and the shaker in the party.  In the very least, he gave the signal that prevented history taking a different turn and taking it instead on a path that might very well have seen the LTTE survive to this date.  On the flip side, of course, it kept the Rajapaksa’s in power and enabled all manner of abuse and erosion of democracy, but that’s another story.   It was a moment that was marked by Wimal Weerawansa.  No contest there.

Wimal was expelled by the JVP in March 2008 and later formed the National Freedom Front (NFF).  That was not a ‘split’.  The real split came when Kumar Gunaratnam and others left to form the Frontline Socialist Party four years later.  If numbers alone counted, then the NFF was an inconsequential sliver and the 2012 split a rip down the middle.  

‘Split’ was what it was called, however.  Perhaps this is why those who supported Sarath Fonseka’s presidential bid in January 2010 thought that Mahinda Rajapaksa could be defeated.  In 2004, the JVP backed Mahinda but in 2010 the party stood with Fonseka.  In 2004, if not for the JVP, Mahinda wouldn’t have had a team to put up posters.  The soldiers, so to speak, had abandoned Mahinda, it was thought.  Other factors should not be discounted of course.  In 2005 Mahinda was a candidate but in 2010 he was incumbent; in 2005 the UNP was a threat, in 2010 it was in disarray; in 2005 Ranil and not Mahinda had the support of both private and public media but in 2010 it was Mahinda who owned the media; in 2005 we were in the middle of a war, by 2010, i.e. under the political stewardship of Mahinda, terrorism had been defeated. Some did say that it was Fonseka who won the war and not Mahinda, but then again those who curse the dictatorial powers of the executive presidency conveniently count out the fact that when dictatorship is conceded sway on all fronts is also implicitly acknowledged. 

What’s relevant here is the error in quantifying the ‘JVP-factor’.  The number of ‘soldiers’ did matter of course, but that factor, when comparing 2005 with 2010 had ceased to be relevant given the changed circumstances and the stature that incumbency gives, not to mention the resources that could be mobilized, legally and illegally.  Outside of this, the JVP was nothing.  Wimal was all.  His voice and turn of phrase, far outweighed anything that the likes of Somawansa, Tilvin, Arura Kumara, Handunnetti, Vijitha Herath and Lalkantha could deliver, individually or as a collective.  

Wimal was one factor and certainly not the only relevant element, but one simply cannot footnote or erase the role he played in the rise of the JVP.   The hard and necessary organizing that is a non-negotiable for party building notwithstanding Wimal gave the JVP the massive public presence it sorely needed following the 88-89 debacle.  He was the JVP’s brand ambassador and helped it rise from a lost cause to a little something and eventually a considerable parliamentary force: 1 seat through Ariya Bulegoa’s party in 1994, 10 in 2000, 17 in 2001 and almost 40 courtesy the manaapa kramaya and joining forces with the SLFP in 2004.  

The brand ambassador became the brand, it could be argued.  Wimal was ejected in 2008 but remained politically relevant.  That’s the advantage of being a brand.  What happened to the JVP after that tells the story of Wimal’s political worth to that party, at least in part. The party’s fortunes declined dramatically.  In April 2010 the JVP won 4 seats (contesting under Fonseka’s banner) and in 2015, returned just 6.  The ‘vote bank’ appears to have stabilized to around 500,000.   

Wimal, along or with his party, is certainly not going to best the JVP in a General Election, but Wimal and his words proved to be a thorn in the JVP’s flesh.  And not just the JVP.   

The maubime panchayudhaya (which he called himself in 2010) has certainly lost its shine.  Electoral defeat does that.  Wrongdoing or even allegations of wrongdoing does that.  There has been a lot of invective against Wimal from pro-Government quarters in social media.  He is not liked.  He is feared by some, especially those who are slow in retort or cannot match his wit.  Others would not consider Wimal a heavyweight.  

One could talk about Wimal’s ideological preferences and how these have evolved over the years.  He’s a nationalist now, for convenience or our of conviction, only he would know.  He is perceived as a threat by those who are opposed to nationalism (are they internationalists, though?).  As such, given the political preferences of the regime, Wimal being incarcerated should be a relief.  It would be a stretch to say that the relief comes from ‘taking out’ a crook, considering the crooks that hobnob with the self-righteous in the high seats of power and the crookedness that is encouraged one way or another by this government.  

Time in the can, as they say, can be sobering.  It quietened Fonseka and all but took out S.B. Dissanayake.  What it would do to Wimal, we cannot say.  He had his moments.  Perhaps he’s not yet done. 

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