Midweek Review

The animating presence of folk literature

Published

5 years ago

2021/02/10

By Prof. Wimal Dissanayake

The dialogue between folk literature and classical literature, in many regions of the world, is as complex as it is fascinating. I am a great admirer of the post-modern writings of the distinguished Italian writer Italo Calvino. I have read all his books, creative and critical, translated into English with great interest. I have written critical essays on his works introducing them to the Sinhala reader. The other day as I was re-reading with mounting interest his book Italian Folktales, I was reminded of the urgency of the intersections between folk and elite literatures.

The Italian Folktales is a collection of 200 folk tales prevalent in various regions of Italy. Italo Calvino has rendered them into standard Italian, making adjustments and alterations when and where necessary. It is indeed a re-telling of these stories by Calvino. This book was first published in Italian in 1956 and translated into English in 1962. Since them there have been other English translations of it. In composing this volume, Italo Calvino was influenced by the thinking of the Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp. Clearly, this is a book intended for the general reader in a way that Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale is not.

The folktales gathered in this volume are full of kings, peasants, ogres, as well as strange animals and plants as indeed in most folktales the world over. Many discerning critics have claimed that Italo Calvino did for Italian folktales what Brothers Grimm did for German folktales. This collection of stories was extremely well received outside of Italy as well. The New York Times Book Review said, ‘This collection stands with the finest folktale collections in the world.’ The Times called it ‘a magic book and a classic to boot.’

The impulse of Italian peasants for collective self-representation and the subtle literary sensibility of Italo Calvino meet in these pages with remarkable results infusing the stories with a vibrant and seductive glow. Indeed, what Brothers Grimm did for German folktales, Calvino did for Italian folk tales. These stories are activated by various dualisms such as reality and fantasy, conventionality and originality, simple and complex, local and universal which discerning literary critics with a deconstructive bent of mind would find extremely attractive and will persuade them to harness their analytical impulses in diverse ways seeking to annul the facile dualisms.

The Colombian Nobel laureate Garcia Marquez is an equally talented writer; but he is very different from Calvino as a literary artist. However, he too was deeply attracted to folk art and folk literature. He has often observed that his narrative impulse and skills were stimulated and nurtured by the folktales that his grandmother told him. He was also profoundly stirred by the Colombian folk music form vallenato. It is a popular folk music genre that is highly lyrical and expressive of a vigorous folk imagination. Garcia Marquez was not only enticed by this musical genre, but he also promoted vallenato concerts. His literary sensibility was memorably penetrated by this musical genre. He once remarked that, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude, his magnum opus, was a 250-page vallenato. As with Calvino, Garcia Marquez too displayed a great partiality for folk art and literature and the distinctive imagination of folk artists.

When discussing the power of folk art and folk literature, another distinguished writer that springs into mind is the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. Tragically, this highly talented writer was assassinated at a relatively young age. His work can best be understood as representing the intersection of folk literature and modern literary sensibility. His work the Gypsy Ballads exemplifies this aspect admirably. He deployed the traditional ballad meter with eight-syllable lines and traditional symbols with remarkable ingenuity. He made use of the self-protective symbolism of Spanish folk poetry to escape the nervous intimacies of personal anguish. Lorca was interested in uncovering the hidden contours of Andalusian imagination. A passage of poetry like the following taken from his Ballad of the Moon illustrates this facet of his work convincingly.

How the night heron sings

How it sings in the trees

Moon crosses the sky

With a boy by the hand

At the forge the gypsies

Cry and then scream

The wind watches

The wind watches the moon

Here Garcia Lorca deploys traditional symbols such as night, moon, sky and wind with new and at times Freudian valences. The ballads appear to be simple, but they conceal a sophisticated art.

The visionary Irish poet and playwright and Nobel laureate W.B.Yeats is another brilliant writer whose imagination was profoundly stimulated by folk art and literature. From the beginning he was attracted to folklore, myths, legends, ballads and so on. He once remarked that legends are the mothers of nations. He also said that, ‘all folk literature, and all literature that keeps the folk tradition, delights in unbounded and immortal things.’ Yeats was not, to be sure, enforcing a simple duality between folk literature and elitist literature; he was referencing a much more complex interaction.

Earlier, I referred to the collection of Italian folk tales by Italo Calvino. Similarly, Yeats published in 1888 a collection of folk tales and poems titled Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. It consists of 65 tales and poems that lead us to the vibrancy of the Irish folk imagination. They introduce us to a fascinating world peopled by kings, witches, ghosts, priests, saints, fairies, demons and peasants. Italo Calvino was interested in uncovering the hidden powers of the Italian folk imagination. Similarly, W.B. Yeats was interested in demonstrating the hidden powers of Irish sensibility. It was his conviction that ‘the very voice of the people, the very pulse of the people’ could be happily recovered through folk literature. Yeats was closely associated the famous Irish Literary Revival and his interest in folk literature constitutes one aspect of it. A well-known literary critic once observed that, ‘Yeats turned to folk sources to give his work the grain of ordinary humanity and the direct appeal of ballads and other traditional forms.’

Coming closer to home, the distinguished Nobel Prize winning writer Rabindranath Tagore also displayed a remarkable interest in folk art, music and literature. Yeats, of course, played a significant role in gaining a reputation for Tagore in the West. His poetry manifests a memorable amalgamation of folk, classical and Western influences. The spatial and temporal structures in his poetic compositions can be usefully understood in terms of folk art and literature. The foundational alphabet of his poems’ codes are traceable to folk roots. He was deeply sensitive to the interesting ways in which the folk imagination left its imprint in the vicissitudes of language. His poetic and lyric texts are marked by a pulse of folk-musicality.

Tagore was undoubtedly one of the greatest Indian writers of the modern age. His myriad talents moved in diverse directions. He earned a wide reputation as a poet, lyricist, novelist, playwright, short story writer, painter, musician, cultural critic and educationist. He was the author of some 60 collections of poetry and a great body of prose writings. He was a gifted musician who composed over ten thousand songs. As a painter, his work was exhibited in New York, Paris, Moscow, Berlin and Birmingham. In all these manifold endeavors one can identify the animating presence of folk art and literature. The rhetorical frameworks guiding his literary creations make audible a dialogue between the folk and elite traditions.

Among the Sri Lankan writers who have assiduously sought out the nurturing presence of folk literature, Gunadasa Amarasekera merits close study. His book of poetry, Amal Biso constitutes a landmark in the evolution of modern Sinhala poetry. In it, he has drawn heavily on the vitality of Sinhala folk poetry. The challenging equation of sense and sound, content and form, logic and syntax, the polyphonic achievements, the musically-patterned complex articulations that one discerns in this poetry book display a deep allegiance to the folk tradition. He combined the power and possibilities of folk poetry with an evolving cotemporary sensibility to produce poetry of a high order.

Let us, for example, consider a poem like Mal Yahanavata Vadinna, which I consider to be one of the finest Sinhala poems of the twentieth century. It recaptures the struggle between carnal love and romantic love drawing on all the available resources of folk poetry – diction, spatial and temporal structures, registers of discourse and rhetorical frameworks. It reconfigures a world fissured by complexity. He annuls easy disjunctions between binarisms of purity and impurity physicality and ideality. As Calvino, Garcia Marquez, Yeats, Garcia Lorca and Tagore had amply demonstrated, to draw on folk literature is not to romanticize it but to make it a vital contemporary presence, poignantly relevant to modern times. Gunadasa Amarasekera, too, has drawn attention to this important fact. It is interesting to observe the ways in which he allows the poem to rediscover the sense of its own textuality. Broadly speaking, a number of other outstanding Sinhala writers have been sensitive to this conjunction of folk and elite literature. In my book Enabling Traditions: Four Sinhala Cultural Intellectuals’ I have drawn attention to this point.

So far, I have discussed how highly gifted and consequential writers from different regions of the world have drawn on the vigor of folk literature to enhance the power and reach of their own work. Another facet of the influence of folk poetry is the diverse ways in which the discourse of the folk tradition has inflected the main tradition of literature. If we take the example of the Sinhala poetic tradition, we can observe how from the beginning the folk tradition has played a pivotal role in shaping the visage of the main tradition. For example, among the Sigiri poems, some of the earliest poetic compositions we have, we see representations and exemplifications of the classical as well as folk traditions.

Most literary historians are inclined to regard the folk tradition and the elite tradition as running along parallel tracks. At a superficial level, one can appreciate the legitimacy of such as approach. However, when we pause to inquire into this topic more deeply we would realize that throughout history there has been a constant and mutually fructifying interaction between the two traditions. Discerning literary critics like Martin Wickremasinghe and Gunadasa Amarasekera have established this fact. If we consider a highly esteemed and popular poem like the Guttila Kavya we would realize how the two traditions fruitfully meet in its pages. Gunadasa Amarasekera in his Sinhala Kavya Sampradaya has drawn attention to this fact. Srinath Ganewatte and I, in our book on Sinhala meter titled Viritha ha Arutha have demonstrated how folk literature has played a determinative role in the growth of Sinhala meters.

As we seek to explore in depth the power and resourcefulness of the folk tradition we need to bear in mind its diverse heuristic possibilities and the need to interpret it from fresh angles.

For example, some products of folk poets lend themselves to a form of subaltern approach. What I seek to highlight by this is the way folk poets foreground their agency, give voice to their predicaments and offer, through their texts, a kind of counter-tradition. Sinhala folk poets have demonstrated the fact that subalterns indeed can speak through their poems of deprivation and loss. This is an attempt to unsettle conventional structures of feeling and upend taken for granted viewpoints. This is indeed a subject area that invites further analysis. It requires elaborate theoretical equipage.

When we begin to unpack the creative and critical possibilities of the folk tradition, we should pay attention to the notion of the performative. Folk poems are nothing if not performative. It is not only in the case of oral poetry but also on the later written poetry, the idea of performance is supreme. Performativity should not be confined to folk poetry alone. All poetry, whether ancient or modern, folk or elite is performative. We do not seem to pay adequate attention to this important fact. By regarding modern poems as a performative events we can open new doors to their many-layered meanings and complex structures.

It has become increasingly clear that the discourse of tradition has to be located within the proper historical and cultural contexts and to focus clear-sightedly on the material forces that contribute to the shaping of tradition. In recent times, critics, like Sena Thoradeniya, have sought to underline this fact. The interplay between the folk and elite literature enables us to map more productively the dynamics of literary tradition. An exploration into the nature and significance of folk literature would permit us to engage in a more focused analysis of the constructedness of literary tradition.

Literary traditions are the outcome of the interaction between language power and nationality. We normally tend to discuss the evolution of literary traditions in linear terms. But it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to adopt a more complex vision which does justice to periods of intense activity and those marked by relative dormancy. Instead of linearity we need to foreground complex re-configurations. Traditions are not innocent of politics in the broader sense of the term. Questions of exclusivity and repressiveness and resistance loom large. We need to reimagine literary traditions as sites of conflict and challenging negotiations where an incessant struggle for meaning and truth takes place. A serious engagement with folk literature as instances of collective self-representations enable us to appreciate the importance of this move. We have been led to believe that literary traditions are transparent and free from the exercising of hidden power. The rhetorical strategies that go to form the discourse of literary traditions, along with the promoted hierarchical truths, have to be patiently mapped.

When we investigate into topics such as literary traditions, literary history and folk literatures our inescapable reference point and the guiding framework become the nation. Our desire to adopt a national framework in the evaluation of tradition is understandable. However, owing to the increasing impact of globalization the inevitability of the concept of nationhood is being challenged. We are asked to come up with a broader frames of intelligibility. The supra-national perspective has several implications. Let us consider a poem like Mal Yahanavata Vadinna by Amarasekera that I alluded to earlier. It is securely located in the folk tradition thematically, structurally and rhetorically. However, readers familiar with the respective writings and visions of Sigmund Freud and D.H. Lawrence would almost certainly find additional layers of meaning in the poem. The need to locate the poem in a larger horizon of meaning becomes apparent. What this highlights is that we need to be aware of both the metaphors of globalism and metonymies of localism. This awareness has a way of mitigating the anxieties of recognition.

On the basis of the preceding discussion, it can plausibly be argued that folk-literature can become a useful point of departure for the deconstruction of literary tradition and literary theory. Traditions are sites of the confluence of language, power and knowledge. This entails choices and preferences which result in exclusions and marginalizations. We have to think about traditions and literary history in new ways in the light of newer theoretical developments in the humanities and the social sciences.

The focus on literary traditions should pave the way to newer explorations of literary history. Literary history is not linear and transparent as is commonly believed, but circulatory and multi-layered. Our focus should be on reconfigurations and parallel assemblages obeying the dictates of Bakhtinian chronotopes (space-time formations). Such an approach will facilitate a more comprehensive view of literary history. An inquiry into folk-literature will expedite this hermeneutic process.

This short article consists of some reflections triggered by my re-reading of Calvino’s Italian Folktales. This re-reading brought to mind the works of Garcia Marquez, Garcia Lorca, Yeats, Tagore and Gunadasa Amarasekera, all of whom in their diverse ways, drew upon the power of folk literary forms. This discussion, I am persuaded, points to the importance of deconstructing literary traditions and literary history and demonstrating their constructed nature and the power plays involved. This article has, inevitably, taken the form of scattered reflections rather than a tightly constructed argument. Given the vast scope of the subject under consideration, and the limited space available, this is only to be expected.

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Midweek Review

Daya Pathirana killing and transformation of the JVP

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/18

Sahan Weerasooriya

JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe, who returned to Sri Lanka in late Nov, 2001, ending a 12-year self-imposed exile in Europe, declared that India helped him flee certain death as the government crushed his party’s second insurrection against the state in the ’80s, using even death squads. Amarasinghe, sole surviving member of the original politburo of the JVP, profusely thanked India and former Prime Minister V.P. Singh for helping him survive the crackdown. Neither the JVP nor India never explained the circumstances New Delhi facilitated Amarasinghe’s escape, particularly against the backdrop of the JVP’s frenzied anti-India campaign. The JVP has claimed to have killed Indian soldiers in the East during the 1987-1989 period. Addressing his first public meeting at Kalutara, a day after his arrival, Amarasinghe showed signs that the party had shed its anti-India policy of yesteryears. The JVPer paid tribute to the people of India, PM Singh and Indian officials who helped him escape.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Forty years after the killing of Daya Pathirana, the third head of the Independent Student Union (ISU) by the Socialist Students’ Union (SSU), affiliated with the JVP, one-time Divaina journalist Dharman Wickremaretne has dealt with the ISU’s connections with some Tamil terrorist groups. The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) hadn’t been among them, according to Wickremaretne’s Daya Pathirana Ghathanaye Nodutu Peththa (The Unseen Side of Daya Pathirana Killing), the fifth of a series of books that discussed the two abortive insurgencies launched by the JVP in 1971 and the early ’80s.

Pathirana was killed on 15 December, 1986. His body was found at Hirana, Panadura. Pathirana’s associate, Punchiralalage Somasiri, also of the ISU, who had been abducted, along with Pathirana, was brutally attacked but, almost by a miracle, survived to tell the tale. Daya Pathirana was the second person killed after the formation of the Deshapremi Janatha Vyaparaya (DJV), the macabre wing of the JVP, in early March 1986. The DJV’s first head had been JVP politburo member Saman Piyasiri Fernando.

Its first victim was H. Jayawickrema, Principal of Middeniya Gonahena Vidyalaya, killed on 05 December, 1986. The JVP found fault with him for suspending several students for putting up JVP posters.

Wickremaretne, who had been relentlessly searching for information, regarding the violent student movements for two decades, was lucky to receive obviously unconditional support of those who were involved with the SSU and ISU as well as other outfits. Somasiri was among them.

Deepthi Lamaheva had been ISU’s first leader. Warnakulasooriya succeeded Lamahewa and was replaced by Pathirana. After Pathirana’s killing K.L. Dharmasiri took over. Interestingly, the author justified Daya Pathirana’s killing on the basis that those who believed in violence died by it.

Wickremaretne’s latest book, the fifth of the series on the JVP, discussed hitherto largely untouched subject – the links between undergraduates in the South and northern terrorists, even before the July 1983 violence in the wake of the LTTE killing 12 soldiers, and an officer, while on a routine patrol at Thinnavely, Jaffna.

The LTTE emerged as the main terrorist group, after the Jaffna killings, while other groups plotted to cause mayhem. The emergence of the LTTE compelled the then JRJ government to transfer all available police and military resources to the North, due to the constant attacks that gradually weakened government authority there. In Colombo, ISU and Tamil groups, including the PLOTE (People’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) enhanced cooperation. Wickremaretne shed light on a disturbing ISU-PLOTE connection that hadn’t ever been examined or discussed or received sufficient public attention.

In fact, EROS (Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students), too, had been involved with the ISU. According to the author, the ISU had its first meeting on 10 April, 1980. In the following year, ISU established contact with the EPRLF (Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front). The involvement of ISU with the PLOTE and Wickremaretne revealed how the SSU probed that link and went to the extent of secretly interrogating ISU members in a bid to ascertain the details of that connection. ISU activist Pradeep Udayakumara Thenuwara had been forcibly taken to Sri Jayewardenepura University where he was subjected to strenuous interrogation by SSU in a bid to identify those who were involved in a high profile PLOTE operation.

The author ascertained that the SSU suspected Pathirana’s direct involvement in the PLOTE attack on the Nikaweratiya Police Station, and the Nikaweratiya branch of the People’s Bank, on April 26, 1985. The SSU believed that out of a 16-member gang that carried out the twin attacks, two were ISU members, namely Pathirana, and another identified as Thalathu Oya Seneviratne, aka Captain Senevi.

The SSU received information regarding ISU’s direct involvement in the Nikaweratiya attacks from hardcore PLOTE cadre Nagalingam Manikkadasan, whose mother was a Sinhalese and closely related to JVP’s Upatissa Gamanayake. The LTTE killed Manikkadasan in a bomb attack on a PLOTE office, in Vavuniya, in September, 1999. The writer met Manikkadasan, at Bambapalitiya, in 1997, in the company of Dharmalingham Siddharthan. The PLOTE had been involved in operations in support of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s administration.

It was President Premadasa who first paved the way for Tamil groups to enter the political mainstream. In spite of some of his own advisors expressing concern over Premadasa’s handling of negotiations with the LTTE, he ordered the then Elections Commissioner Chandrananda de Silva to grant political recognition to the LTTE. The LTTE’s political wing PFLT (People’s Front of Liberation Tigers) received recognition in early December, 1989, seven months before Eelam War II erupted.

Transformation of ISU

The author discussed the formation of the ISU, its key members, links with Tamil groups, and the murderous role in the overall counter insurgency campaign during JRJ and Ranasinghe Premadasa presidencies. Some of those who had been involved with the ISU may have ended up with various other groups, even civil society groups. Somasiri, who was abducted along with Pathirana at Thunmulla and attacked with the same specialised knife, but survived, is such a person.

Somasiri contested the 06 May Local Government elections, on the Jana Aragala Sandhanaya ticket. Jana Aragala Sandhanaya is a front organisation of the Frontline Socialist Party/ Peratugaami pakshaya, a breakaway faction of the JVP that also played a critical role in the violent protest campaign Aragalaya against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. That break-up happened in April 2012, The wartime Defence Secretary, who secured the presidency at the 2019 presidential election, with 6.9 mn votes, was forced to give up office, in July 2022, and flee the country.

Somasiri and Jana Aragala Sandhanaya were unsuccessful; the group contested 154 Local Government bodies and only managed to secure only 16 seats whereas the ruling party JVP comfortably won the vast majority of Municipal Councils, Urban Councils and Pradeshiya Sabhas.

Let us get back to the period of terror when the ISU was an integral part of the UNP’s bloody response to the JVP challenge. The signing of the Indo-Lanka accord, in late July 1987, resulted in the intensification of violence by both parties. Wickremaretne disclosed secret talks between ISU leader K.L. Dharmasiri and the then Senior SSP (Colombo South) Abdul Cader Abdul Gafoor to plan a major operation to apprehend undergraduates likely to lead protests against the Indo-Lanka accord. Among those arrested were Gevindu Cumaratunga and Anupa Pasqual. Cumaratunga, in his capacity as the leader of civil society group Yuthukama, that contributed to the campaign against Yahapalanaya, was accommodated on the SLPP National List (2020 to 2024) whereas Pasqual, also of Yuthukama, entered Parliament on the SLPP ticket, having contested Kalutara. Pasqual switched his allegiance to Ranil Wickremesinghe after Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s ouster in July 2022.

SSU/JVP killed K.L. Dharmasiri on 19 August, 1989, in Colomba Kochchikade just a few months before the Army apprehended and killed JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera. Towards the end of the counter insurgency campaign, a section of the ISU was integrated with the military (National Guard). The UNP government had no qualms in granting them a monthly payment.

Referring to torture chambers operated at the Law Faculty of the Colombo University and Yataro operations centre, Havelock Town, author Wickremaretne underscored the direct involvement of the ISU in running them.

Maj. Tuan Nizam Muthaliff, who had been in charge of the Yataro ‘facility,’ located near State Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne’s residence, is widely believed to have shot Wijeweera in November, 1989. Muthaliff earned the wrath of the LTTE for his ‘work’ and was shot dead on May 3, 2005, at Polhengoda junction, Narahenpita. At the time of Muthaliff’s assassination, he served in the Military Intelligence.

Premadasa-SSU/JVP link

Ex-lawmaker and Jathika Chinthanaya Kandayama stalwart Gevindu Cumaratunga, in his brief address to the gathering, at Wickremaretne’s book launch, in Colombo, compared Daya Pathirana’s killing with the recent death of Nandana Gunatilleke, one-time frontline JVPer.

Questioning the suspicious circumstances surrounding Gunatilleke’s demise, Cumaratunga strongly emphasised that assassinations shouldn’t be used as a political tool or a weapon to achieve objectives. The outspoken political activist discussed the Pathirana killing and Gunatilleke’s demise, recalling the false accusations directed at the then UNPer Gamini Lokuge regarding the high profile 1986 hit.

Cumaratunga alleged that the SSU/JVP having killed Daya Pathirana made a despicable bid to pass the blame to others. Turning towards the author, Cumaratunga heaped praise on Wickremaretne for naming the SSU/JVP hit team and for the print media coverage provided to the student movements, particularly those based at the Colombo University.

Cumaratunga didn’t hold back. He tore into SSU/JVP while questioning their current strategies. At one point a section of the audience interrupted Cumaratunga as he made references to JVP-led Jathika Jana Balawegaya (JJB) and JJB strategist Prof. Nirmal Dewasiri, who had been with the SSU during those dark days. Cumaratunga recalled him attending Daya Pathirana’s funeral in Matara though he felt that they could be targeted.

Perhaps the most controversial and contentious issue raised by Cumaratunga was Ranasinghe Premadasa’s alleged links with the SSU/JVP. The ex-lawmaker reminded the SSU/JVP continuing with anti-JRJ campaign even after the UNP named Ranasinghe Premadasa as their candidature for the December 1988 presidential election. His inference was clear. By the time Premadasa secured the presidential nomination he had already reached a consensus with the SSU/JVP as he feared JRJ would double cross him and give the nomination to one of his other favourites, like Gamini Dissanayake or Lalith Athulathmudali.

There had been intense discussions involving various factions, especially among the most powerful SSU cadre that led to putting up posters targeting Premadasa at the Colombo University. Premadasa had expressed surprise at the appearance of such posters amidst his high profile ‘Me Kawuda’ ‘Monawada Karanne’poster campaign. Having questioned the appearance of posters against him at the Colombo University, Premadasa told Parliament he would inquire into such claims and respond. Cumaratunga alleged that night UNP goons entered the Colombo University to clean up the place.

The speaker suggested that the SSU/JVP backed Premadasa’s presidential bid and the UNP leader may have failed to emerge victorious without their support. He seemed quite confident of his assertion. Did the SSU/JVP contribute to Premadasa’s victory at one of the bloodiest post-independence elections in our history.

Cumaratunga didn’t forget to comment on his erstwhile comrade Anupa Pasqual. Alleging that Pasqual betrayed Yuthukama when he switched allegiance to Wickremesinghe, Cumaratunga, however, paid a glowing tribute to him for being a courageous responder, as a student leader.

SSU accepts Eelam

One of the most interesting chapters was the one that dealt with the Viplawadi Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/Revolutionary Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (RJVP), widely known as the Vikalpa Kandaya/Alternative Group and the ISU mount joint campaigns with Tamil groups. Both University groups received weapons training, courtesy PLOTE and EPRLF, both here, and in India, in the run-up to the so-called Indo-Lanka Peace Accord. In short, they accepted Tamils’ right to self-determination.

The author also claimed that the late Dharmeratnam Sivaram had been in touch with ISU and was directly involved in arranging weapons training for ISU. No less a person than PLOTE Chief Uma Maheswaran had told the author that PLOTE provided weapons training to ISU, free of charge ,and the JVP for a fee. Sivaram, later contributed to several English newspapers, under the pen name Taraki, beginning with The Island. By then, he propagated the LTTE line that the war couldn’t be brought to a successful conclusion through military means. Taraki was abducted near the Bambalapitiya Police Station on the night of 28 April, 2005, and his body was found the following day.

The LTTE conferred the “Maamanithar” title upon the journalist, the highest civilian honour of the movement.

In the run up to the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord, India freely distributed weapons to Tamil terrorist groups here who in turn trained Sinhala youth.

Had it been part of the overall Indian destabilisation project, directed at Sri Lanka? PLOTE and EPRLF couldn’t have arranged weapons training in India as well as terrorist camps here without India’s knowledge. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka never sought to examine the origins of terrorism here and identified those who propagated and promoted separatist ideals.

Exactly a year before Daya Pathirana’s killing, arrangements had been made by ISU to dispatch a 15-member group to India. But, that move had been cancelled after law enforcement authorities apprehended some of those who received weapons training in India earlier. Wickremaretne’s narrative of the students’ movement, with the primary focus of the University of Colombo, is a must read. The author shed light on the despicable Indian destabilisation project that, if succeeded, could have caused and equally destructive war in the South. In a way, Daya Pathirana’s killing preempted possible wider conflict in the South.

Gevindu Cumaratunga, in his thought-provoking speech, commented on Daya Pathirana. At the time Cumaratunga entered Colombo University, he hadn’t been interested at all in politics. But, the way the ISU strongman promoted separatism, influenced Cumaratunga to counter those arguments. The ex-MP recollected how Daya Pathirana, a heavy smoker (almost always with a cigarette in his hand) warned of dire consequences if he persisted with his counter views.

In fact, Gevindu Cumaratunga ensured that the ’80s terror period was appropriately discussed at the book launch. Unfortunately, Wickremaretne’s book didn’t cause the anticipated response, and a dialogue involving various interested parties. It would be pertinent to mention that at the time the SSU/JVP decided to eliminate Daya Pathirana, it automatically received the tacit support of other student factions, affiliated to other political parties, including the UNP.

Soon after Anura Kumara Dissanayake received the leadership of the JVP from Somawansa Amarasinghe, in December 2014, he, in an interview with Saroj Pathirana of BBC Sandeshaya, regretted their actions during the second insurgency. Responding to Pathirana’s query, Dissanayake not only regretted but asked for forgiveness for nearly 6,000 killings perpetrated by the party during that period. Author Wickremaretne cleverly used FSP leader Kumar Gunaratnam’s interview with Upul Shantha Sannasgala, aired on Rupavahini on 21 November, 2019, to remind the reader that he, too, had been with the JVP at the time the decision was taken to eliminate Daya Pathirana. Gunaratnam moved out of the JVP, in April 2012, after years of turmoil. It would be pertinent to mention that Wimal Weerawansa-Nandana Gunatilleke led a group that sided with President Mahinda Rajapaksa during his first term, too, and had been with the party by that time. Although the party split over the years, those who served the interests of the JVP, during the 1980-1990 period, cannot absolve themselves of the violence perpetrated by the party. This should apply to the JVPers now in the Jathika Jana Balawegaya (JJB), a political party formed in July 2019 to create a platform for Dissanayake to contest the 2019 presidential election. Dissanayake secured a distant third place (418,553 votes [3.16%])

However, the JVP terrorism cannot be examined without taking into JRJ’s overall political strategy meant to suppress political opposition. The utterly disgusting strategy led to the rigged December 1982 referendum that gave JRJ the opportunity to postpone the parliamentary elections, scheduled for August 1983. JRJ feared his party would lose the super majority in Parliament, hence the irresponsible violence marred referendum, the only referendum ever held here to put off the election. On 30 July, 1983, JRJ proscribed the JVP, along with the Nawa Sama Samaja Party and the Communist Party, on the false pretext of carrying out attacks on the Tamil community, following the killing of 13 soldiers in Jaffna.

Under Dissanayake’s leadership, the JVP underwent total a overhaul but it was Somawansa Amarasinghe who paved the way. Under Somawansa’s leadership, the party took the most controversial decision to throw its weight behind warwinning Army Chief General (retd) Sarath Fonseka at the 2010 presidential election. That decision, the writer feels, can be compared only with the decision to launch its second terror campaign in response to JRJ’s political strategy. How could we forget Somawansa Amarasinghe joining hands with the UNP and one-time LTTE ally, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), to field Fonseka? Although they failed in that US-backed vile scheme, in 2010, success was achieved at the 2015 presidential election when Maithripala Sirisena was elected.

Perhaps, the JVP took advantage of the developing situation (post-Indo-Lanka Peace Accord), particularly the induction of the Indian Army here, in July 1987, to intensify their campaign. In the aftermath of that, the JVP attacked the UNP parliamentary group with hand grenades in Parliament. The August 1987 attack killed Matara District MP Keerthi Abeywickrema and staffer Nobert Senadheera while 16 received injuries. Both President JRJ and Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa had been present at the time the two hand grenades were thrown at the group.

Had the JVP plot to assassinate JRJ and Premadasa succeeded in August 1987, what would have happened? Gevindu Cumaratunga, during his speech also raised a very interesting question. The nationalist asked where ISU Daya Pathirana would have been if he survived the murderous JVP.

Midweek Review

Reaping a late harvest Musings of an Old Man

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/18

Sahan Weerasooriya

I am an old man, having reached “four score and five” years, to describe my age in archaic terms. From a biological perspective, I have “grown old.” However, I believe that for those with sufficient inner resources, old age provides fertile ground to cultivate a new outlook and reap a late harvest before the sun sets on life.

Negative Characterisation of Old Age

My early medical education and training familiarised me with the concept of biological ageing: that every living organism inevitably undergoes progressive degeneration of its tissues over time. Old age is often associated with disease, disability, cognitive decline, and dependence. There is an inkling of futility, alienation, and despair as one approaches death. Losses accumulate. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.” Doctors may experience difficulty in treating older people and sometimes adopt an attitude of therapeutic nihilism toward a life perceived to be in decline.

Categorical assignment of symptoms is essential in medical practice when arriving at a diagnosis. However, placing an individual into the box of a “geriatric” is another matter, often resulting in unintended age segregation and stigmatisation rather than liberation of the elderly. Such labelling may amount to ageism. It is interesting to note that etymologically, the English word geriatric and the Sanskrit word jara both stem from the Indo-European root geront, meaning old age and decay, leading to death (jara-marana).

Even Sigmund Freud (1875–1961), the doyen of psychoanalysis, who influenced my understanding of personality structure and development during my psychiatric training, focused primarily on early development and youth, giving comparatively little attention to the psychology of old age. He believed that instinctual drives lost their impetus with ageing and famously remarked that “ageing is the castration of youth,” implying infertility not only in the biological sense. It is perhaps not surprising that Freud began his career as a neurologist and studied cerebral palsy.

Potential for Growth in Old Age

The model of human development proposed by the psychologist Erik Erikson (1902–1994), which he termed the “eight stages of man,” is far more appealing to me. His theory spans the entire life cycle, with each stage presenting a developmental task involving the negotiation of opposing forces; success or failure influences the trajectory of later life. The task of old age is to reconcile the polarity between “ego integrity” and “ego despair,” determining the emotional life of the elderly.

Ego integrity, according to Erikson, is the sense of self developed through working through the crises (challenges) of earlier stages and accruing psychological assets through lived experience. Ego despair, in contrast, results from the cumulative impact of multiple physical and emotional losses, especially during the final stage of life. A major task of old age is to maintain dignity amidst such emotionally debilitating forces. Negotiating between these polarities offers the potential for continued growth in old age, leading to what might be called a “meaningful finish.”

I do not dispute the concept of biological ageing. However, I do not regard old age as a terminal phase in which growth ceases and one is simply destined to wither and die. Though shadowed by physical frailty, diminishing sensory capacities and an apparent waning of vitality, there persists a proactive human spirit that endures well into late life. There is a need in old age to rekindle that spirit. Ageing itself can provide creative opportunities and avenues for productivity. The aim is to bring life to a meaningful close.

To generate such change despite the obstacles of ageing — disability and stigmatisation — the elderly require a sense of agency, a gleam of hope, and a sustaining aspiration. This may sound illusory; yet if such illusions are benign and life-affirming, why not allow them?

Sharon Kaufman, in her book The Ageless Self: Sources of Meaning in Late Life, argues that “old age” is a social construct resisted by many elders. Rather than identifying with decline, they perceive identity as a lifelong process despite physical and social change. They find meaning in remaining authentically themselves, assimilating and reformulating diverse life experiences through family relationships, professional achievements, and personal values.

Creative Living in Old Age

We can think of many artists, writers, and thinkers who produced their most iconic, mature, or ground-breaking work in later years, demonstrating that creativity can deepen and flourish with age. I do not suggest that we should all aspire to become a Monet, Picasso, or Chomsky. Rather, I use the term “creativity” in a broader sense — to illuminate its relevance to ordinary, everyday living.

Endowed with wisdom accumulated through life’s experiences, the elderly have the opportunity for developmental self-transformation — to connect with new identities, perspectives, and aspirations, and to engage in a continuing quest for purpose and meaning. Such a quest serves an essential function in sustaining mental health and well-being.

Old age offers opportunities for psychological adaptation and renewal. Many elders use the additional time afforded by retirement to broaden their knowledge, pursue new goals, and cultivate creativity — an old age characterised by wholeness, purpose, and coherence that keeps the human spirit alive and growing even as one’s days draw to a close.

Creative living in old age requires remaining physically, cognitively, emotionally, and socially engaged, and experiencing life as meaningful. It is important to sustain an optimistic perception of health, while distancing oneself from excessive preoccupation with pain and trauma. Positive perceptions of oneself and of the future help sustain well-being. Engage in lifelong learning, maintain curiosity, challenge assumptions — for learning itself is a meaning-making process. Nurture meaningful relationships to avoid disengagement, and enter into respectful dialogue, not only with those who agree with you. Cultivate a spiritual orientation and come to terms with mortality.

The developmental task of old age is to continue growing even as one approaches death — to reap a late harvest. As Rabindranath Tagore expressed evocatively in Gitanjali [‘Song Offerings’], which won him the Nobel Prize:: “On the day when death will knock at thy door, what wilt thou offer to him?

Oh, I will set before my guest the full vessel of my life — I will never let him go with empty hands.”

by Dr Siri Galhenage
Psychiatrist (Retired)
[sirigalhenage@gmail.com]