FSP outdid JVP in providing muscle to Gall Face protesters

(Excerpted from Vol. 3 of the Sarath Amunugama autobiography) ✍️

Mostly due to the day long power cuts, non-availability of essential commodities and constant discussion about rampant corruption and family bandyism, middle class people began to come onto the streets. They attempted to set up candle light vigils since they were driven out of their unlit homes. This was the first time that professionals in large numbers began to experience such direct action. A leader was necessary to galvanize these new protesters. This leadership was provided by Hirunika Premachandra of the Samagi Jana Balavegaya. She was the daughter of a radical politician who had been killed in a political fracas between two gangs which were loyal to MR.

With the Rajapaksas backing the more powerful opposing side, Hirunika and her radical followers joined the UNP and later the SJB. She became the darling of the Aragalaya. Hirunika was adept at embarrassing GR by focusing on his weaknesses. It was rumoured that GR was brainwashed by a “miracle worker” called Gnana Akka who had a shrine in Anuradhapura. The President was following the far out recommendations of this shaman and was seen visiting her shrine frequently for domestic favours. What was even more reprehensible was that armed services personnel were used to build her a shrine and a nearby hotel.

Maithripala Sirisena told me that Gnana Akka had been a hospital attendant who became a soothsayer after suffering the trauma of seeing her husband murdered by the JVP. She had been interdicted by the health authorities but with her reputation rising among politicians and armed service bigwigs he had rehired her as the telephonist at the Anuradhapura state hospital. Her reputation had soared during the ethnic war because many army high-ups were located in Anuradhapura. With many risks taken in the battlefield they sought her mystic reassurances of safety and long life. Hirunika broke this bubble by leading a demonstration of her supporters, mostly females, to surround Gnana Akka’s premises and even clash with the armed guards who had been deployed there.

This embarrassed GR but more was to come. On the evening of Thursday 31st Hirunika brought out a number of suburbanites in the Nugegoda area for a candle lit vigil to protest the power cuts which were affecting them badly. Unlike the Colombo rich who had the means to invest in power generators, suburbanites were particularly vulnerable. The number of protesters grew and when information reached them that GR and his wife were at that time in their private residence in Pangiriwatte Lane, they began to march towards the poorly guarded residence.

Still at this stage GR could not believe that he had become unpopular. I had visited his residence several times before GR became President. It was a simple house with a newly constructed annexe. What struck me was the number of books and Buddha statutes that were strewn all over his sitting area. GR also had an impressive library. He was known to be the most erudite of the Rajapaksa family, which never claimed to be very educated. The Pangriwatta house was not well protected and did not even have a second exit in case of a crisis.

On this day fighting broke out and it was later divulged that the security apparatus – particularly the Army – did not respond promptly and effectively. Several vehicles including a bus was set on fire. In the meanwhile television, particularly a channel that gave much publicity to the Aragalaya, went `live’ on this encounter and the country was made privy to the helplessness of its leader in the face of a determined opposition.

With TV showing the fighting around Pangiriwatte lane many “Colombians” moved towards Mirihana – some to enjoy the spectacle of their President besieged by a group of ladies led by Hirunika. She had been traumatized by the decision of the Rajapaksas to back her father’s killers. This led her to the UNP and later to the SJB where she shot to fame as an active member of Parliament. Hirunika took a particular delight in attacking the Rajapaksas. As mentioned earlier she had led a demonstration in Anuradhapura against “Gnana Akka”. This led to the secrets of the GR-Gnana mystical connection being aired in public.

The Aragalaya paved the way for a large number of women to enter the public domain. This was not surprising since they had to bear the brunt of the shortages in the country. For instance TV cameras panned to desperate women in suburban high rises who had no access to electricity, gas, water, sanitation and other services which left them marooned and desperate on the top floors of their buildings. On the other hand university teachers, especially women teachers, turned up in strength sending the message that all classes were presently suffering.

An important consequence of the Aragalaya was that the populace began to find a new respect for intellectuals as witnessed by the emphasis placed by all parties to “Viyath” or candidates with high academic qualifications in their electoral lists. In contrast to the traditional left that attempted to foster workers representatives [eg; DG William, Pantis, Wimalasena, Piyadasa etc] the JVP and the new Left forgot the workers and emphasized their links with Universities and “intellectuals” to give them credibility with middle class voters [eg. Harini Amarasuriya and the group of women MPs from the NPP].

Minorities

A noticeable sociological fact was the strong support given to the Aragalaya by minorities. They were responding to many slights that GR had visited on them. GR was behaving in a foolish way by tilting away from the traditional middle ground in ethnic relations that all previous Presidents had followed. For instance MR as President would emphasize the multi-ethnic, multi religious character of the Sri Lankan state. He even went further by addressing minorities in Tamil language. GR, who was a captive of the hard “Sinhala Right” led by “Jatika Chintanayists” took great pains to identify himself with the majority and distance himself from the minorities, whom he openly accused of not voting for him.

To emphasize his Sinhala Buddhist vote base he took his oaths in Anuradhapura – the Sinhala Buddhist heartland. A committee was appointed to “Save ancient Buddhist sites” in Northern and Eastern provinces. This triggered a series of confrontations between the Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese extremists who had been held in check by the Yahapalana regime. While justifying his actions by referring to constitutional provisions for the safeguarding of Buddhism, GR also set up a “Supreme Council” of senior Buddhist monks which was a long time request of the Jatika Chintanaya. GR was the only President who took the ideas of JC ideologue Nalin de Silva seriously and thereby alienated the majority of citizens of all races and religions who opted for coexistence and harmony in a modern Sri Lankan state.

In an obvious display of his fealty to JC he appointed Nalin de Silva as our Ambassador to Myanmar. De Silva who resigned his post after a short stay in Myanmar became a dedicated opponent of Aragalaya. With the success of the Aragalaya he migrated to the US and began a polemical battle with “anti-national” elements but he died not long after.

Another decision which riled the minorities was the use of armed services to construct Buddhist shrines. A religious site in Kaltota near Balangoda was shared by both Buddhists and Muslims in the area. The Muslims called it Dafter Zailani after a saint who was said to be buried there. When I was the AGA of Ratnapura in 1964 I visited this site after complaints of religious clashes were reported to government. I worked out a compromise with the villagers of both communities.

Conflict was ignited mainly by urban Buddhists and Muslims who saw political opportunities in this situation. Balangoda was an electorate which had a large Muslim population and would even elect a Muslim – Aboosally – as a UNP MP battling it out with the Ratwattes in their home town. An activist Buddhist monk from Kandy started a campaign to make an urban type temple in Kaltota with a lot of publicity in the Sinhala media. He had managed to get the support of the army chief Shavendra Silva and GR who deployed army engineers to construct a mammoth and, garish, edifice full of symbolism with lions guarding the temple entrance. Kaltota was converted into a Buddhist pilgrimage site with all its attendant commercial ventures including the sale of gifts, “puja” offerings, amulets and talismans – a modern phenomenon well documented for northern Thailand by Stanley Tambiah in his monumental work on Thai Buddhism.

Catholics in the country were traumatized by the Easter bombings. With over 250 worshipers killed and over 500 injured it was by far the biggest blow to the church in modern times. It was made possible by the monumental stupidity of our intelligence authorities and negligence by political authorities. The world wide protest was led by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and it drew the support of even the Pope. They all with one voice called for a full and fair inquiry and were not satisfied with the follow-up by the GR administration. Thus a large number of Catholics, as well as Christians, were seen among the protesters.

They in their religious habits were easily visible in the Aragalaya. Young priests who mingled with the protesters invoked the image of Jesus of Nazareth – the scourge of the Pharisees and the money lenders who populated the Temple [Trees?]. All in all it was clear that the minorities who had voted against GR in the Presidential contest were energized by the Aragalaya. They were its well wishers as seen in the positive interventions like those of MP and distinguished lawyer Sumanthiran regularly in Parliament and in the courts on behalf of the protesters.

Political interventions

As to be expected Aragalaya which arose out of the desperation of the public at the unprecedented breakdown of public utilities, drew the attention of political parties in the Opposition. The SJB which sought to capitalize on the failures of the GR regime attempted to intervene with Sajith Premadasa and a few front rankers visiting Galle Face. However they were thwarted when encircled by JVP and FSP activists who were camping out in the field. A well known JVP actor threatened bodily harm and Sajith and his advisors had to beat a hasty retreat. However support to the Aragalaya came from the SJB and UNP through covert means when their rich supporters began to provide food supplies to the “hard core” camping out in the green.

This was popularly known as “Buriyani” assistance as TV cameras caught food trucks rolling in with supplies. The real beneficiary of this activity was Ranil who was “the last man standing” when GR later began a bargain basement sale of the premiership. This led to the remarkable ascent which carried him to the Presidency for the remaining tenure of the ousted GR.

We can now turn to the role of the Marxist parties that formed a strong protective ring for the Aragalaya. The old left parties – the LSSP and C -, were shown up as having no strength to intervene significantly at this juncture. As coalition partners of the Rajapaksas they had expended their political capital and except for individual contributions of veterans like DEW Gunasekera, they had nothing left to offer. The two main leftist parties in contention in the Aragalaya were the JVP [and their umbrella front the NPP] and the Frontline Socialist Party [FSP] popularly known as the Peratugamis. Both drew their origins from Wijeweeras JVP and were former comrades who had split on both ideological and organizational issues which followed the JVP decision to support the SLFP on two previous occasions. While Anura Dissanayake and Tilvin Silva led the JVP\NPP Kumar Gunaratnam led the FSP.

It was Lenin, not Marx, who was the ideologue and tactician of the October uprising. Lenin’s Bolshevik party which was only nominally a working class party, made use of the revolutionary situation created by the mutiny of the Czars navy and army. In this melee Lenin with his small but disciplined Bolshevik party co-opted the Mensheviks led by Trotsky and gave leadership to an insurrection. He propounded the theory of the “Vanguard party” in a non industrialized society which was symbolized by his Bolshevik party.

Both the JVP and the FSP recognized the potential of the Aragalaya which seemed to them to make Lenin’s strategy replicable in the emerging local context. Perhaps they imagined a St Petersburg in the congregation in Galle Face and other spots in the densely populated working class districts of Colombo where workers and lower middle class people were trapped in high rise buildings. But while Lenin could mobilize cadres from the armed services especially for the attack on the Winter Palace, on the banks of the river Neva, both the JVP and the FSP had to depend on their youth organizations as their shock troops.

In this the FSP was far ahead of the JVP. The FSP had their tightly organized “Antare” or University Students Federation which they had taken over from the JVP having used many tactics including physical violence. The “ragging” which greeted new entrants was turned into a violent induction into the “Antare” which even the JVP compared to a fascist organization. Ignoring a hoary tradition in our state universities they prohibited speakers of other political persuasions, including the JVP from setting foot on the Campus. The FSP/Antare could mobilize an impressive “army” of radical university students who would march almost every week along the streets of Colombo thereby keeping up the tempo of the protests and exposing the unpreparedness of the Police who any way was demoralized by GRs inactivity.

The “Antare” and its young leaders like Mudalige and Nagamuwa who were photogenic and vocal, gave a head start to the FSP and Kumar Gunaratnam’s tactics seemed to have an effect on the wider public. The JVP, without a similarly strong youth front, had to fall back on their trade unions and urban party cadres to make an impression. This naturally highlighted the role of Lal Kantha their trade union boss [assisted by Handunnetti in charge of University agitation] who was a maverick thinker in the leadership ranks of the JVP. Every time the non political protesters were under threat the large scale demonstrations of the Antare and the trade unions of the JVP, which regularly filled the streets with their supporters thereby getting extensive live TV coverage, gave them confidence and indeed brought more of their ranks to Galle Face.

Unlike later under the Ranil administration, the Police response was a guarded one. After a dousing from the Police water cannons the student demonstrators dispersed without much violence. However the President was increasingly under siege. He was forced to abandon his office and transfer his location to the Presidents House which was a strategic mistake since this left the whole Galle Face area in the hands of the Aragalayites. They cheekily focused an improvised “light and shadow” display on the outer walls of the Presidents office. GR was unable to go to his own office and had to operate from the Presidential Palace. The armed services were unable to get the head of state to function from his own office.

Panic sets in

With the demonstrations increasing in tempo GR began to examine his options. Since he was not an office bearer of the SLPP he was cut off from the party machinery and had to depend on the advice of a few Ministers. The SLPP bank benchers had no access to him and were grumbling that mismanagement had led to a break down of civic life which prevented them from even visiting their electorates. The economic crisis prevented any compensatory pork barrel financing at electorate level. Their cry for vehicle permits and other “perks” were ignored by GR who was facing an empty exchequer.

Since one of the main complaints of the Aragalaya was about family bandyism, GR was advised to remove Mahinda and Basil Rajapaksa from their respective portfolios. Basil [a. k. a Kaputa] who was singled out as the main culprit of the debacle resigned his finance minister’s portfolio on June 9. 2022 adding to the momentum of the insurgents which was gathering steam by the day. This led to a family conflict with GR requesting MR also to step down while the latter’s immediate family was strongly against such a move.

This put MR in a spot even though, in fairness to the former President, he had indicated that he was willing to step down. He had confided in his favourite editor of a Sinhala newspaper, who was a go between him and GR, that he should be summarily sacked by the President so that he would not have to face his family who was pressing him not to resign. It was this tug of war that probably led to a pivotal act of folly which finally led to the downfall of GR and the Rajapaksa regime.

(Available at Vijitha Yapa Bookshop)