Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

22 February   2021

 

 

TAMIL-SINHALA PARTNERSHIP THROUGH COMMUNISM

 

Tamils of Lanka are now better known to the wider world due to the ethnic war. When others share in our pain, that becomes the foundation of relationships. Yesterday, Dina Barton of the UK for example wrote ‘If war is the only answer, then it must have been a very silly question!’
Both sides to the war did not have enough in common to form relationships through common structures. The Sri Lankan Constitution confirms this through Article 9 which requires the Government to foster Buddhism. If this were taken to be belief based, as is required, then Non-Buddhists were aliens to the Government. In practice though Buddhists and Non-Buddhists came together through other common areas. Those relationships have bonded us and communism is one of them.

The JVP’s armed insurrection in 1971 confirmed that Buddhism did not bind the People to the Government. The experience of the JVP leader Mr Rohana Wijeweera, that laid the foundation for JVP’s birth is presented as follows by Wikipedia:

[Rohana Wijeweera's father was a political activist of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL). During an election campaign in the 1960s, he was severely assaulted by UNP members and in consequence he was paralysed.

The young Rohana Wijeweera was emotionally affected. When Rohana Wijeweera's further education was in jeopardy as a result of his father being incapacitated, the CPSL arranged a scholarship for him to study medicine at the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow. There, he read the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Lenin, and became a committed Marxist.

By this time, the Communist Party of Sri Lanka was divided into two factions: the Chinese faction and the Soviet faction. Wijeweera broke away from the CPSL which was aligned with the USSR and joined the Ceylon Communist Party (CCP) led by N. Shanmuganathan.]

 

As per Wikipedia –

[Mr Nagalingam Shanmugathasan was a trade unionist and Maoist revolutionary leader in Sri Lanka. He was the General Secretary of the Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist)  Shanmugathasan hailed from a family of modest means in the town of Manipay in Jaffna District]

……. In 1965, Rohana Wijeweera learned from Shanmugathasan to lead the revolutionary faction of the Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist). Later he formed the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or JVP.]

 

The Government’s identity of the collaboration between Tamil and Sinhala Communists is highlighted as follows:

[On 27 February 1971 JVP held its last public rally before the insurrection at Colombo's Hyde Park, here Wijeweera stated that "Let the revolution of the workers, farmers and soldiers be triumphant". On 5 March 1971, after an accidental explosion in one of the JVP bomb factories killing five members, the police found 58 bombs in a hut in Nelundeniya, Kegalla District. Wijeweera went on to travel around the country, but was arrested on 13 March in Ampara by a special Police team and was later transferred to the Jaffna Prison…….

The attack on Jaffna Prison took place on the night of 5 April with the aim of rescuing Wijeweera. It failed when police reinforcements arrived and arrested many of the attackers, while some were killed. Attacks on the Jaffna police station and Karainagar naval detachment also failed with four of the insurgents were killed on 6 April at Elephant pass.]

As stated previously in my articles, when we start from the effect and seek through our truth we end  up with the cause. The effect in the above is Buddhism Foremost  article in the 1972 Constitution. The cause was separation of those who failed to ‘obey the government’. It was NOT belief in Buddhism. Desire and Fear are two sides of the one neo-colonialism coin.

The genes of rebellion were already in Jaffna not only through Wijeweera’s  imprisonment, but also through Shanmugathasan:

 

[In 1971 Shanmugathasan was imprisoned for one year during a crackdown on revolutionaries following the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) rebellion. Shanmugathasan was targeted by the government for his espousal of armed revolution for political change and for being identified as one of the political mentors of Rohana Wijeweera, the founding leader of the JVP. While detained in prison Shanmugathasan authored a book, A Marxist Looks at the History of Ceylon.

In 1973, Shanmugathasan's party was estimated by the US State Department to have approximately 500 to 800 cadre, and possessed "the ability to control the Ceylon Trade Union Federation and the Ceylon Plantation Workers' Union with a combined membership of some 110,000]

More interestingly, the connection extended beyond Lankan shores to India – probably strengthened by Plantation workers who were then known as Indian Tamils. The role of Communism is confirmed as follows:

[After the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which conducted armed struggle with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) as a part of the Naxalite Insurgency, Shanmugathasan played the role of liaison between China and CPI(ML).]

 

More recently the connection is known through the ruling BJP party:

[Biplab Deb was elected the President of Tripura state unit of BJP in January 2017 replacing Sudhndra Dasgupta who was BJP's longest serving state president. He started his political career by campaigning for the 2018 state election. He began his campaign from the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council which was believed to be the base of the then governing CPI(M)

 

Now that the LTTE has become the Tamil JVP in North, should we be surprised that China is ‘happening’ in Northern Sri Lanka and Indian Politicians connected to Communism are promising to open up branches in Sri Lanka. In fact following is  reported about former President Maithripala Sirisena:

[In 1971, aged 19, he was jailed for 15 months for alleged involvement in the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Insurrection]

Mr DBS Jeyaraj reports in his contribution ‘The Man Behind Moves to Form the “BJP” in Sri Lanka’ :

[Given it is a relatively young party, how would you like to see the SLPP evolve? 
 Basil’s reply was “Let the people understand and decide. I want our party to be a party like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and how they act. The party has its say because the party has responsibility. When a minister is appointed by the people, the MPs can come, but the ministerial portfolio is given by the President and the Prime Minister. We can also be like the Indian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). We have learned from many political parties in the world. The best two are the BJP and CCP.”   ]

While the Tamil Diaspora is busy with their new found ‘Freedom’ to accuse Lankan Government of Racism – the Government has opened the backdoor to Communism including from India.

Now that we know the real cause to be Communism for which Wijeweera and Shanmugathasan & Prabhakaran were punished are we going to punish also ruling party SLPP leaders?

When we pretend to be making laws on the basis of belief – the idle part becomes the workshop of our desires and fears. If even one member of the public believes in that position developed over many centuries – and accepts the ‘other side’ the government would be defeated.