By Rohana R. Wasala

Continued from Monday, February 17, 2025

When I am formulated, sprawling on a pin” (from T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock’ first published 1915)

In moments of self-reflection, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake probably feels the way Prufrock does, helplessly exposed to the probing, judgemental gaze of the public  like an anaesthetised insect, say a cockroach, pinned down on a dissecting table in a school science lab. There are a number of  similarities and dissimilarities that can be discerned between the fictional Prufrock and the real Dissanayake, such as those in relation to their culturedness or lack of it and self conscious pretences. But this is no time for a lecture on English poetry.. 

I ended Part II with the question (as rephrased) whether the JVP/NPP (Malimawa) members believe that all ordinary Sri Lankans approve of their method of combating corruption, while also sharing their deeply negative view of 76 years of post-independence national development, with equal conviction and commitment. The obvious answer is that the Malimawans do believe so. But the reality is not what they believe. The reality is that growing numbers of ordinary Sri Lankans have begun to think that the Malimawans are not actually serious about eliminating  corruption, for they seem to be beholden to certain sleazy big businessmen for having contributed lavish  funds to the JVP party coffers, and that they are succumbing to the neoliberal (open market) economic policies introduced 47 years ago that they then fought tooth and nail, even shedding their blood. They are now doing the exact opposite of what they promised. 

 The resultant public dissent from these unexpected about-turns of the Malimawans could trigger  not so gentle a reaction from them; the JVP has a history of resorting to violent repression out of a sense of righteous indignation based on their own logic. A Meta/FB video critical of the government uploaded by a Ranil Wickremasinghe supporter in Matale in central Sri Lanka went viral a couple of days ago. The FB activist was expressly visited by a local member of the JVP to warn him and demand that he take down the offensive video immediately, but he refused to do so, even after the JVP’er issued a dire warning. This could be regarded as an early sign of possible, even probable, future authoritarian suppression of democratic dissent under the Malimawa administration. More serious similar cases of suppression of opposition (like the recent physical attack on a rival activist in Kamburupitiya) are becoming daily occurrences. 

Does the current performance of the NPP promise a good enough change from the Gotabhaya Rajapaksa legacy to justify their arrogant intolerance of adverse criticism?

The previous presidential and parliamentary elections held respectively on  November 16, 2019 and August 5, 2020 and won by Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Sri Lanka Podu Peramuna (SLPP or Pohottuwa ) led by his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa  would provide an informative contrast to those held respectively on September 21 and November 13, 2024 and  won by Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of the JVP/NPP (Malimawa). There was a clear-cut policy framework to be implemented in a unitary state with a single legal system based on the One Country, One Law principle. A common judicial system for the whole country was considered so important for social cohesion in the multiethnic society and  for national security that after assuming the office of president, GR appointed a presidential task force to prepare the ground for implementing the One Country One Law principle with the democratic consent of the general multiracial, multireligious multicultural public. The highest priority was given to national security. This was natural to a country just rescued from separatist terrorism. Other key election pledges included a homegrown people-focused economic development system with special attention to the semi urban and rural sectors, an independent, non-aligned foreign policy for maintaining well balanced friendly relations with other nations, a corruption-free civil administration, and a knowledge and technology-based society consisting of disciplined, law-abiding citizens committed to high moral and ethical values (as spelt out in the SLPP election manifesto of 2019). 

What the SLPP manifesto promised was a reinforcement of the successful economic policies of ten years of MR rule (2005-2014) which raised the country to the status of a middle income country with a growth rate of 7-8% by the end of 2014 in terms of World Bank assessments.. This was achieved while fighting a wasteful terror elimination war amidst powers that be throwing spanners in the works. Five years of Yahapalanaya (2015-2019) installed courtesy those sinister forces, reduced the country to penury and the growth rate down to 2-3%. Did the Malimawa manifesto promise anything different from the IMF dependent economic model followed during the Yahapalanaya? 

The JVP/NPP manifesto of 2024 did not offer as clear a vision for the future as the SLPP one of 2019. The reputedly Marxist  Malimawans promised to continue with the neoliberal economic reforms Ranil Wickremasinghe proposed in his Economic Transformation Bill of May 2024 in terms of which  …Foreign investments shall be permitted into all sectors and regions of Sri Lanka. Foreign investors shall be permitted to own one hundred per centum of the shares in entities engaged in such sectors and regions, unless otherwise determined by way of regulations made under the provision of this Part or any other written law…” in compliance with stringent IMF regulations that contra-Marxist Ranil Wickremasinghe had accepted. The budget proposals (announced February 17) are a hardly veiled confirmation of those economic policies.

 Days prior to the Budget debate, ex-MP Wimal Weerawansha, leader of the Jathika Nidahas Peramuna (National Freedom Front) who had remained a JVP member until 2008 described the JVP/NPP (Malimawa) as a left-neoliberal alliance. Essentially the Malimawa manifesto seems a virtual replication of  economic and constitutional reforms the Yahapalanaya attempted after the foreign engineered regime change of 2015 (connected, in retrospect, with the ongoing USAID controversy).

At the Independence Day ceremony named ‘Nava Yugayaka Arambuma’ (Beginning of a New Era)  held at the Independence Square in Colombo on February 04, 2025, president Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared: ‘Instead of celebrating the Independence Day with a backward look at the past, this time, we observe the day looking towards the future’. But he made passing mention of the republican change introduced in 1972 (probably only to salve his conscience). In his brief address, president Dissanayake repeated, with one important substitution, the famous Five Great Forces (Pancha Maha BalaWegaya) that the left leaning nationalist SWRD Bandaranaike, leader of the SLFP-led MEP (Mahajana Eksath Peramuna) mobilised while spearheading the historic soft revolution of 1956 (i.e., the democratic overthrow of the pro-West/rightwing UNP, that had ruled during the previous eight years). AKD left out the Sangha (Buddhist monk) Force, and included instead the Security departments (implying the security, civil defence, and police forces): Thus he briefly touched on farmers and fishers, teachers, health personnel, security forces, and workers. The deliberate exclusion of the Sangha (Buddhists monks) as an influential section of the national polity was perhaps meant to emphasise his secular credentials, his ‘secular’ approach to governance. 

This is not the first or the last time that his deliberate suppression of his own culturedness or his insensitive display of lack of it angered the ‘baiyas’, especially, the Sinhalese Buddhist majority who have no other country to proudly express and freely assert their hallowed, over two millennia old Buddhist cultural identity as a sovereign nation. His public desecration once of the ‘pirith noola’ that the Mihintale monk tied on his arm as a blessing (by tearing it off as soon as he left the monk’s presence), his dispensing with the long established ritual of singing Jayamangala Gathas by a bevy of schoolgirls at the opening of parliament, and  his curt dismissal of a monk’s offer to administer pansil as a customary blessing at the inauguration of a public party event recently at Kurunegala have not endeared him to the sensible public. AKD must get rid of his obsession with  publicly showing off his ‘secularism’ (that I am 100% sure he, his party and followers have thoroughly misconceived)  for his own good and more importantly, for the good of the country..

 It was rumoured that attempts were being made to revive the UNP by bringing the deserters back to its fold along with their leader Sajith Premadasa. At the time of writing this, the proposed reconciliation appears to have been worked through ahead of the impending Provincial Council elections. Despite this, it has also been hinted that the two groups are not likely to face the provincial council elections as a common front. One factor that would give AKD a sense of frustration in this context is: Although  the well known history of the aged politicos executing this latest manouevre who were key figures of the controversial Yahapalanaya regime (2015-19) whose unpopularity and bad governance paved the way for the resounding victory of Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the 2019 election, the voters of the North and East provinces might switch their allegiance back to Ranil and Sajith. The prospects of such attempts at bringing about a reconciliation between RW and SP succeeding looked rather dim before. But now, that is not the case. They seem to have patched up their relationship at least temporarily so as to pose a strong challenge to the NPP. This and other deft opposition moves will not augur well for the longevity of AKD’s fledgling presidency and the future functioning of his government.

 Behind the blown-up bravado that AKD attempts to maintain when abroad, he seems to be as shy as a cockroach. At home, he might be trying to fight shy of having to face the implications of the cockroach hypothesis of the efficient market theory (The cockroach hypothesis says that when a company announces bad news, more bad news is sure to follow).

But, this is only to pep you up Mr President.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” as a character in a Shakespeare play says. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake! Please prove worthy of the greatness that you have both achieved by the dint of hard work and have also thrust upon yourself  by the maelstrom of global politics. Please make use of the unprecedented opportunity  you have won to save our  beloved Motherland without selling her and her children down the river for short term political gain. I know that you, as a genuine baiya, are patriotic and self- denying. Good Luck to you!

Concluded