‘This battle is between progressives and reactionaries. You have to decide whether the progressive Mahajana Eksath Peramuna will win? Or whether the reactionary U.N.P. will win…’
This is the narrative S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike spoke during the 1956 general election in every village.
‘This battle is between the haves and the have-nots. Between the progressive and the reactionary camp, is it the reactionary U.N.P.? Or is it the progressive SLFP? The decision is in your hands….’
This is the story that Sri Lankan Freedom Party leader Mrs. Bandaranaike told, campaigning in village to village in 1960, 1965, and 1970.
From 1947 to the establishment of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party in 1951, the battle in Sri Lanka was between capitalism and socialism.
Bandaranaike formed the Sri Lanka People’s Party and turned it into a battle between progressives and reactionaries. After Bandaranaike’s assassination, Mrs. Bandaranaike, who became the leader of the SLFP, also marked the battle between these two camps.
Chandrika, who became the unofficial leader of the SLFP Party in 1994, changed the direction of this battle by baptising the anti-UNP-led Sri Lankan Freedom Party leftist battle as a fight against corruptors and terrorists. Chandrika changed the battle towards this theme, knowing that the UNP’s open economy could not be changed. But she could not carry this battle for long. The reason was that the SLFP and the leftist parties had accustomed the SLFP supporters to think of the UNP as a right-leaning capitalist party and the SLFP as a left-leaning middle-of-the-road party.
Besides, the SLFP was formed by the Sinhala Buddhist forces. Within a few days of its coming to power, she turned the anti-UNP fight into an anti-corruption and terrorism fight and, knowing that she could no longer win elections, she took the war in the North to the forefront and marked the UNP as a pro-Tiger party and the SLFP as an anti-Tiger party, winning every election after 1994.
While the fight took this turn, she stood for the grant of political power to the Tamil people. This did not suit the SLFP, which was formed by Sinhala Buddhist forces. Mahinda arose against Chandrika by leading the Sinhala Buddhist forces of the SLFP.
He revived the fight that Chandrika crippled which Bandaranayake created in 1956. On the one hand, he turned the anti-UNP SLFP fight into a ‘Bayas’ fight against the ‘Toyyas’. It was a new interpretation of the progressive fight against the reactionaries.
He broke Ranil’s ceasefire and started the war, and brought the anti-UNP SLFP fight to a dangerous point as a fight of patriots against traitors. He said that everyone who supports Mahinda is a patriot and everyone who opposes Mahinda is a traitor. He divided the UNP, the JVP, civil organisations, minority parties, and media organizations which were against him with this single line and made them traitors. He made the trade unions traitors.
This line had a stronger popular appeal than the line drawn by Bandaranaike in 1951. Not only the monks but also the cardinal of the church close to the UNP went and stood behind Mahinda.
Anti-Mahinda forces in 2015 erased this indelible line and draw a new line as thieves and good governance and started a new fight. Patriotism was suppressed and the fight against theft raised its head. Mahinda and patriotism were defeated. However, the line of the fight against theft got erased with the Central Bank fraud, and patriotism raised its head once again with the Easter attacks.
Before 2015, there was a fight between traitors who supported Tamil separatism and patriots against separatism. After the 2019 Easter bombing, the patriotic battle to defeat Muslim extremism against the traitors who fuel Muslim extremism came to the fore.
Gotabhaya becomes president through that fight. The struggle that came to the fore with the economic crisis of Gota’s government changed this fight again. It was the fight against the thieves that the anti-Mahinda forces brought to the fore in 2015.
The main opposition, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, needed to lead the fight against these thieves and win 2025. The reason was that there was no one in that party with corruption charges. However, a portion of this party, which had been separated by the Rajapaksaites who had been defending the struggle by calling them thieves, went to support Ranil, took benefits from Ranil, and declared that they should unite with Ranil.
The JVP took the fight against these thieves and labelled them as thieves, which ‘aragalaya’ gave the Rajapaksaites. Ranil, who was protecting the Rajapaksaites, and the conspirators of Samagi Jana Balawegaya, who got sold to Ranil, claimed that the country had gone bankrupt because of the 76-year curse. The Samagi Jana Balawegaya simply fell into the trap of thieves without campaigning against it. The JVP stood as the only alternative against the thieves.
In the 2024 general election, the JVP once again baptised the patriotic line against the traitors that Mahinda carved in 2008 and stood as a strong, popular and attractive force against thieves.
People gave 159 MPS to the JVP, thinking that the JVP would punish these thieves and build the country with the stolen money. The JVP said that the prices of all goods like oil, gas, rice, etc. are rising due to commissions and theft. People thought that when these commissions and thefts are gone, the prices of goods would come down. But the JVP did not catch the thieves when it came to power. The prices of goods did not come down. However, the JVP thinks that even in this mini-election, it will continue to fight against this line and destroy the opposition.
‘Will the JVP’s game succeed …?’
If people think that six months is not enough to catch thieves, this game will be over. But this slogan is not a line that can be protected. It does not have much life. Even if it cannot be done in six months, it is more likely that it will be erased in a year.
The opposition was able to erase the traitorous line against Mahinda’s patriots because people thought that after becoming patriots and ending the war, they would get relief from the money spent on the war. If the JVP cannot stop the thieves and provide relief to the people with that money, erasing the thieves’ line is not a big deal for the opposition.
