Dissanayake win has implications but India need not worry too much

For more reasons than one, India need not be unduly bothered by Sri Lanka's regime change. But it would be naïve to think that the charismatic Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a committed Marxist, will ascent to power without any fallout domestically in Sri Lanka and for the world at large.

What JVP’s win means for India

There are those in India who fear that the victory of the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front), Dissanayake’s party, which sits at the head of the National People’s Power alliance, will mean that Sri Lanka will steer sharply towards Beijing, that too at the cost of New Delhi.

That is most unlikely to happen.

The JVP of today is not the JVP which took North Korea’s help to try to seize power violently in 1971, and it is not the JVP of the times when being anti-India was seen as a badge of patriotism.

Metamorphosis over the years

Over time, individuals, institutions, societies and nations evolve – and change – for the better or worse. The JVP, Sri Lanka’s most influential left-wing group, too has also had its share of metamorphosis since its birth in May 1965.

There was a time when the JVP, on the line of Stalin’s views on nationalities, justified the “Tamil aspirations”. Decades later, it came to be viewed as an anti-Tamil party.

There was a time when the JVP dubbed other Left groups as revisionists ready to embrace “bourgeois parties”. It itself did so years later.

Change of heart

There was a time when the JVP was violently opposed to the Sri Lankan military. Now it is firmly on the side of the military and refuses to allow anyone to even talk about punishing military officials accused of committing war crimes during the end stages of the conflict against the Tamil Tigers.

There was a time when “Indian expansionism” was one of the five major ideological lessons imparted to JVP cadres. Today, the JVP has not just visited New Delhi on invitation but understands India’s security concerns.

There was a time when the JVP viewed – like all good old Communists – religion as a symbol of reaction. Today, the JVP co-habits without inhibitions with saffron-robed Sinhalese Buddhist monks.

Pledge to Lankan voters

The JVP’s main election pledge was to stamp out endemic fraud and corruption in Sri Lanka.

The JVP wants to ensure a level-playing field for everyone who wishes to contribute to Sri Lanka’s economic development and abolish the system of bribe-taking to award contracts and projects.

The JVP may lack a parliamentary majority for now, but it will not compromise on the above issues. It knows very well that this appeal has catapulted it to power, and it will do nothing to dilute this.

In the long term, assuming the JVP manages to consolidate its authority after parliamentary and other local elections, it will try to reshape Sri Lanka's economic, social, and political path.

Not to be cowed down

When it comes to foreign policy, it will go out of the way to make it clear that it not under giant India’s – or any other – shadow. But it will ensure that it does not hurt New Delhi’s legitimate security concerns.

To understand this, it is necessary to quote what Dissanayake told an Indian journalist amid the election campaign.

“It is well known that there is competition between India and China in our region,” he said, reflecting his understanding of the geo-political realities.

“Our approach will be to safeguard regional security while leveraging economic opportunities to our advantage. However, we are committed to maintaining our sovereignty and will not become subordinate to any power in this geopolitical race,” he added.

There is no way a JVP leader would have spoken this way, say, even a decade ago.

Stand on provincial councils

The JVP may not agree with whatever the Indian state proposes. It certainly will not appreciate any intrusion – as it understands – into domestic Sri Lankan issues, including the Tamil question.

India is vocal that Sri Lanka should implement the 13th amendment to the constitution which arose as a result of the much-maligned 1987 India-Sri Lanka agreement and which seeks to devolve powers through provincial councils.

The JVP has over the years blown hot and cold over the provincial councils although they have been functioning successfully – and this is an irony – more in Sinhalese areas than the Tamil areas for which they were meant.

But even if the JVP, in its new wisdom, retains the provincial councils, it will not grant them police and land powers – a key demand in Tamil areas.

Bashing minorities not JVP’s cup of tea

The JVP, unlike other mainstream parties, will also not find it easy to shake hands with former Tamil guerrillas (of all hues) who later took to parliamentary democracy – although the JVP itself has travelled that path.

It must also be borne in mind that the JVP, whatever its other constraints, is ideologically not in alignment with some core values of India’s ruling BJP.

On a matter of principle, the JVP cannot accept the willful bashing of any ethnic or religious group. Hating and demonising Muslims has become almost a way of life for a section of the BJP.

From the JVP’s perspective, a party and a government which look down upon Muslims, India’s largest religious minority, has no right to hector others on how to deal with their minorities.

A visit that changed Lanka-India ties

Dissanayake may not have secured 50 per cent of electoral support but his 42 per cent is a huge ballooning of mass backing that fetched him and the JVP just 3 per cent of all votes only five years ago.

The JVP is on a path of political ascendency. It is this timely recognition which led India to approach it late last year, leading to the visit by a JVP delegation to New Delhi, Gujarat and Kerala in February this year.

Undoubtedly, this was one of the most mature actions the Indian establishment took in recent times, knowing that it needs to understand better the JVP, overlooking the past.

The JVP also got a good chance to sympathise with some, if not all Indian concerns.

If that visit had not taken place, the JVP’s meteoric rise may have meant a different story for India.