Questions continue to be speculated about the true intentions of the JVP in orchestrating the NPP government – whether the JVP is still committed to its old Marxist-Leninist policies and whether it may or may not implement them through its NPP front. Further, will the JVP/NPP allow Sri Lanka’s multi-party democracy to continue or resort to one party governance like in countries where a Communist Party is in power. The fact that local government elections were held under an NPP government after a seven year hiatus is conveniently forgotten. That the LG elections had previously been postponed and cancelled by non-Marxist governments is now never mentioned.

And then the scaremongering – if the NPP government were to fail and suffer defeat at the next election, will it pave the way for the return of the Rajapaksas, yet again, but this time under a new generation led by the supposedly hugely talented Namal Rajapaksa? There were pre-election predictions that Namal Rajapaksa and the rump that is left of the SLPP might overtake Sajith Premadasa’s SJB in the LG elections. That did not happen.

The Rajapaksa scion is still safely in third place by quite a distance after the SJB and its lackluster leader, the slightly older but still the only young Premadasa in Sri Lankan politics. For company, they have a really old man, i.e., Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is capable of many things, but gracefully retiring is not one of them. At least, and to his credit, he lives in his own house and takes no residential perk at government expense unlike all the other ex-presidential freeloaders.

Philistine Preoccupations

It is not unfair to say that most of their commentaries are nothing but philistine preoccupations passing for serious politics. The word ‘philistine’ was a favourite term of Engels (the second fiddle to Marx’s first violin) and it is appropriate now since Marxism is at the tip of the tongue of everyone who wants to take a shot at the NPP government. The term is also apt to fling at the right wing populists, who are now becoming less popular in their western backyards thanks to their greatest specimen – Donald J. Trump

And what a specimen Trump is constantly devolving into – the latest stage being his disgusting White House encounter last Wednesday with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Less said of it is better for your bile and if you saw it on television you would have instantly noticed the difference between a contemptible mammon out of Florida and a consummate statesman from Soweto.

As epithets are flung around to capture the antics of Trump, the latest comes from the usually measured Paul Krugman, distinguished American economist who was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for his work on “trade patterns and location of economic activity.” Krugman knows something about tariffs and economics, and the other day he called Trump and his sidekicks “sadistic zombies”.

Many among the Sri Lankan opposition politicians might be considered zombies, but none of them could be thought of as being sadistic. To close this loop on Trump and his dystopic global presence, one needs to acknowledge his primeval effectiveness in pushing people around to get his way. More so with foreign leaders than his opponents at home. But he uses this effectiveness to feed his ego and enrich his family and not at all to make a difference in the world’s trouble spots where the American government has more sway than anyone else.

This was quite evident on Trump’s recent visit to the Arab world that was all about glitter and one-way gifts including a flying palace, and nothing at all for American foreign policy, let alone for the wretched of the earth in Gaza or the slow burning of Ukraine. One noticeable fact of the visit was Trump’s deliberate snubbing of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Not only did Trump go to Riyad and Doha bypassing Jerusalem but he also sent a message to Netanyahu that he would deal directly with Netanyahu’s enemies including Hamas, Iran and the Houthis. To what great outcome, no one knows. At the same time, Trump’s apparent sidelining of Netanyahu together with the joint condemnation of Netanyahu’s latest Gaza plans by Britain, France and Canada, seemed to tighten the screws on Netanyahu and signaled a new opportunity for reining in Israel’s runaway leader and his notoriously right wing government.

All that came crashing down with the insane assassination, on Wednesday, of two young Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington by a lone gunman, 30 year old Chicago native Elias Rodriguez, shouting “Free, free, Palestine”. All that this politically deranged individual has achieved is to free Netanyahu to go ahead with his Gaza plans and to prolong the misery of the Palestinians who are under constant bombardment in Gaza.

Sri Lanka’s Durable Political System

Today’s Sri Lanka is fortunate to have finally come out of its own decades of political violence, and after several missed opportunities following the end of the war in 2009, the country finally has a government that for its all its inexperience in governing has shown consistent commitment to honesty, decency and transparency. Yet many commentators are rankled by the irony that a government whose political progenitor was a violent insurrectionist could now be a paragon of multi-party democracy.

Their constant allusion to Marxism is really a code for recalling the JVP’s violent past. Never mind that the past had come and gone 30 and 50 years ago. They conveniently ignore the possibility that the JVP could have and may actually have transformed itself from its pre-history to its current manifestation. Its current commitment to the parliamentary system and multi-party democracy is no less authentic than any of the other political parties. If at all, the JVP/NPP is more honest about it than every other party.

As well, those who agonize that the JVP might terminate Sri Lanka’s muti-party democracy and opt for some version of the political systems in countries such as Vietnam, China, Russia or even Cuba, fail to take into account the history and the currency of Sri Lanka’s political system that has proved to be quite durable, so much so that any political party that that tries to subvert or supplant it will do so at its own peril. And Sri Lanka’s political system, its history and currency are not comparable to what are prevalent in the four countries that I have mentioned.

The governing parties in these countries have been in power for as long as their polities have been existing, and they have no reason to think of changing their respective mode of government now or later. In contrast, the JVP/NPP government has come to power through the electoral process, and it has no incentive to think of changing that process now or later. Sri Lanka’s political system has not been without ailments, and the most debilitating of them has been the presidential system. And the JVP/NPP is the only political organization in the country that is fervently committed to curing Sri Lanka of that enervating illness. Whether it will keep its promise and succeed in changing the executive presidency is a different matter. It is the only party that is committed to changing the presidency, whereas all the others have tried to use it to serve their own ends.

Indian Comparisons

What is more comparable for Sri Lanka is the experience of the Indian states of Kerala and West Bengal where the Indian Communists have won power through the electoral process on many occasions and acquitted themselves very well in government. In modern Kerala’s first state election in 1957, EMS Namboodiripad led the then undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) to electoral victory and a new government. That was India’s first elected Communist Government, and the world’s second – after the first elected Communist government (1945-1957) in San Marino, the tiny commune of a country in the Italian peninsula.

But the government was dismissed in 1959 by the Central Government at the insistence of a young Indira Gandhi using her influence as the President of the Congress Party, even sidelining her father and then Prime Minister Nehru. But Communists have become a governing force in Kerala forming several governments over the years led by the CPM (the Communist Party of India – Marxist), the larger of the two factions that emerged after the Party’s ideological split in 1964. The current government in Kerala is the government of the Left Democratic Front that is led by the CPM. The LDF has been in power since 2016 – winning two consecutive elections, a feat not achieved in 40 years.

In West Bengal, the CPM was in power continuously for 34 years from 1977 to 2011. Jyoti Basu of national prominence was Chief Minister from 1977 to 2000 and is recognized as the longest serving Chief Minister in India. In 1996, he was offered the chance to become India’s Prime Minister as head of a United Front alliance of non-Congress and non-BJP parties. But the great Bengali declined the offer in deference to his Party Polit Bureau’s lamebrained doctrinaire decision barring him from becoming Prime Minister in a coalition government. Unlike in Kerala, the CPM has not been able to alternate in government after its defeat in 2011. The Party was decimated in the 2021 national and State elections in West Bengal by Trinamool Congress a state-level party like Tamil Nadu’s DMK.

What the JVP/NPP has achieved in Sri Lanka is unique to Sri Lanka and, comparable to the Indian situations, the NPP’s electoral success poses no threat to the political system in Sri Lanka. The NPP government has completed only six months in office, but its critics are insistent on seeing results. They will not bother to look at what the present government’s predecessors respectively did in the first six months after elections in 2010, 2015 and 2019. At the same time, while is still too early for substantial results, it is getting late enough to get by without showing some work in progress, let alone some tangible achievements. It is about time.

by Rajan Philips

Book review

I was pleasantly surprised to receive recently, from Shashikala Premawardhane, Sri Lanka High Commissioner in Singapore at the time, a volume that commemorated half a century of diplomatic ties between the two countries. Entitled Singapore and Sri Lanka at 50: Perspectives from Sri Lanka, it had been published in 2023. The High Commissioner had handed over the editing of the book to two Sri Lankans and a Singaporean, who had chosen a range of topics to cover.

I was struck by the fact that I knew just four of the contributors, with a nodding acquaintance with two Foreign Service members who had contributed. I think this was because the work had been entrusted to younger writers and scholars, with particular interest in the fields they covered. So, it was just three of the economists, and reliable Prof Amal Jayawardane whom I knew, the latter from our time together on the Board of the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies.

It surprised me that we had only established diplomatic relations 50 years ago, but as the then Foreign Secretary put it, the relationship went back for well over a century before that, practically to the time when Singapore was established by Sir Stamford Raffles. The first section of the book records the many emigrants from here, who established themselves in business and professions, with several senior Singaporean politicians having Sri Lankan roots. There is much too about the Amarasuriya family which married into B.P. de Silva’s, who had set up the iconic B P de Silva jewellery firm, and also about doctors and lawyers.

I did however miss mention of the first Supreme Court judge from Sri Lanka, Justice Kulasekeram, who had worked for many years in Colombo and was then put on the Supreme Court when he migrated to Singapore by Chief Justice Sir Alan Rose. Rose, it may be remembered, had been Attorney General here and then Chief Justice, but was forced to leave by Sir John Kotelawala for his role in promoting Dudley Senanayake as Prime Minister when D S died suddenly.

But this section, on Historical and Social Relations, also has an incisive article by one of our brighter young diplomats, Madhuka Wickramaarachchi, about Singapore’s Language Policy, which has contributed so effectively to nation building whereas our selectivity has been so destructive of national unity. Without preaching, Madhuka makes clear how much we can learn, and that it is not too late to change our focus.

The second section, about Economic and Investment relations, begins with an article that is essentially about Prima. Following a long relationship with this country after it was established in Singapore in 1961, Prima was an early example of the Foreign Direct Investment the Jayewardene government encouraged from 1977. Having come in then, it has expanded over the years and now provides much employment in this country.

The next two chapters in this section are primarily about the new opportunities opened up by the relatively recent Sri Lanka Singapore Free Trade Agreement, and there is much detail about what has happened and what could happen, though I cannot comment on all this since it is not an area I know much about.

But I should note that I would have welcomed more attention to the work of a firm that came in nearly half a century back, the Overseas Realty Group which built the World Trade Centre, and then started work on Havelock City and persisted, despite the various problems this country faced. I believe they are a byword for integrity, which perhaps explains why this country has not taken more advantage of their predilection for investment here.

The third section, on Perspectives on Security and Counter Terrorism, is also something I know little about, though I found the account of the cooperation in this field of the two countries interesting, and also how information has been shared with regard to combating terrorism, with Singapore having links with other countries that enables it to be a helpful resource for less sophisticated countries like ours.

And the last chapter in this section highlights something we need to take seriously, the need for better coordination with regard to what is described as security architecture, and not only with regard to cyber security which is the focus of this piece. The sad story of what happened in 2018, before the Easter bombings, makes clear how destructive our failure to coordinate – and not only with regard to security – can be.

The next section of Diplomacy and Multilateralism lays out clearly the opportunities we missed when we might have joined ASEAN when it was set up. This was initially because of Dudley Senanayake’s worries about what seemed its pro-American tilt. Later, when Ranasinghe Premadasa was keen to renew dialogue, we were told to go away, but I suspect this was in part because J R Jayewardene and the foreign policy dispensation was not too keen on the sort of innovations Premadasa advocated.

Interestingly, after Amal Jayawardane’s piece on the need for closer cooperation with ASEAN, there is a fascinating article about cooperation during the pandemic, which suggests we could take this dimension further. The same goes for the area explored in the last section, on Environment and Climate Change. The first article there draws attention to the need to look at Climate Change in terms of a National Security Issue, and suggests areas of common concern to both our island states.

And fascinating was the last article in the book on Wetland Conservation, which draws attention to an area in which we can easily do more work, and cooperate with Singapore on productive initiatives. In this context I am saddened that a project which I am told Ruwan Wijewardene had supported when in the President’s Office to renew mangrove cover has now floundered, because no one in the Prime Minister’s Office, where the proposal now rests, has the energy or the will to take it further.

I don’t suppose anyone in the Prime Minister’s office has read this admirable book, but it is a pity that those in charge of policy are not encouraged to do so, both there and in the President’s office, and to look at the many ideas for future development that the book suggests.

Singapore and Sri Lanka at 50: Perspectives from Sri Lanka

an anthology reviewed by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

How he got a place at the high table and rode in state with President Marcos through Manila

Premadasa liked to travel abroad and during his period of 11 years as prime minister, visited many countries. The term ‘prime minister of Sri Lanka’ gave him instant recognition and a status far above what he enjoyed customarily at home since J R was both head of state and head of government.

Constitutionally, he was nothing more than another minister. But abroad, except for the most scrupulous of protocol officers who knew Sri Lanka had an executive president, he was to all intents and purposes the head of government of his country. Our unstated policy was ‘if they don’t ask, don’t trouble to tell them’.

On a visit to the Philippines in 1981 he used a clever stratagem to win a seat for himself at the high table at the international conference convened for ministers of housing. As prime minister he was invited, and stayed at the Malacanang Palace in Manila, within the presidential complex buildings. President Marcos was to open the conference, and Imelda, who was then the Governor of Greater Manila was to receive him at the entrance to the Convention Hall.

Premadasa contrived to pay his courtesy call on Marcos at the Presidential Palace just before the time fixed for the formal opening of the Conference in down-town Manila, and managed to persuade Marcos to allow him to ride to the Convention Center with him in the presidential car. This gained him an unexpected and completely impromptu state drive into the city. It was marvelous to see the aplomb with which he acknowledged the cheers of the crowds who thronged the road to see Marcos with his new and unknown friend by his side.

The two of them, Marcos and Premadasa, marched up to the stage but there was no chair there for Premadasa since his assigned place was with the other ministers of housing in the front rows of the hall. After a hurried consultation on stage, another chair was produced, some shuffling around and space made, and all ended well. Premadasa finally got to make his speech first, from the stage and not from the podium as the other ministers of housing had to do.

The Premadasa family with PM Thatcher in London

I got the distinct impression that General Carlos Romulo, the famous war hero who was Marcos’ foreign minister and mastermind of the opening ceremony – peeved at what was happening – was not too pleased. But Premadasa had stolen the show and received a loud cheer from the small group of Sri Lankan expatriates present in the hall.

But in spite of all the adulation and honour he usually received there were some negatives for him in visits abroad. The basic problem was that it upset his carefully planned daily schedule and his avid preference for Sri Lankan cooking, above all the gourmet dishes and gastronomic delights the host would serve.

His tastes in local cookery revolved essentially around well-boiled red rice, vegetarian dishes with the simple kola mallun as an absolute necessity. So, our ambassadors abroad were to be frequently seen bringing in to the London Hilton, the Waldorf Astoria in New York or wherever he bedded-down for the night, string-hoppers with assorted sambols and other Sri Lankan delicacies in the early hours of the morning in food-warmers. They apparently did not mind it at all as it gave them credits which they could, and did later, cash-in to their benefit. Premadasa also disliked the cold, not only of winter which forced him to encumber his body with layers of socks, scarves, thermal underwear and overcoats, and even the chill of a June morning in London. On his visits to Europe and Canada, especially, he often commiserated with the Sri Lankan diplomatic staff who endured stoically, in his view, the generally miserable weather and could not comprehend their eagerness to seek foreign postings.

Mrs Premadasa, whom he would call Hemawathie – her full name and not the shortened Hema – which most others did, was a great support to him on these visits. She enjoyed making new friends and did not mind at all indulging in the small talk, which is an essential part of diplomatic conviviality. The host country leaders found her inherent charm and good looks appealing and she helped the receptions and dinner meetings go with a swing.

The only part of her which was a problem on foreign visits was her invariable inability to keep to time. This was mostly because of the inevitable last-minute shopping. There was a great deal of good-natured ribbing between husband and wife on this score but once or twice the delay would be serious and Premadasa would be fuming.

On these occasions he would turn to me for help and plead in Sinhala, “Bradman, please ask her to hurry up”, as he walked up and down the hotel lobby, ready for departure with the motorcade revving up.

Needless to say, I was not always successful in getting her down in the next few minutes. I found that she, like Mrs Bandaranaike before her, found the European habit of kissing the back of a lady’s hand when saying welcome or goodbye not very nice, to say the least.

Premadasa too on his day and in his element was a lively conversationalist. He had a fund of anecdotes illustrating some particular quirk in the human personality. He related these with an eye for detail and imagery which was riveting but the joke was usually on someone else. Balasuriya, his private secretary, and Evans Cooray, his press secretary, were often the butt-end of his stories for the crazy situations they sometimes got themselves into.

Between the two of them, Premadasa and Hema on their visits abroad made a host of Sri Lankan friends which led to many exciting projects – to image-building for Sri Lanka abroad and to the building up of a reservoir of expatriate funding for local social projects. One of the most innovative of these was the Sevana Foster Parents Scheme in which a small regular donation from an expatriate could be used to benefit the life of a poor child in Sri Lanka.

President Jayewardene used Premadasa liberally for foreign missions. He became a familiar figure at CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings). His contributions were listened to with attention and the observations he offered at Lusaka received appreciative notes from both the hosts, Chairman Kenneth Kaunda and Sridath Ramphal.

It was very encouraging and I was happy to have been part of it. The particular item for which Premadasa was lead-speaker was ‘community participation in development’, and with the first-hand local experience we had, we made a good job of it. He received a personal letter from President Kenneth Kaunda acknowledging his contribution.

At this meeting in Lusaka the future of Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) was the controversial issue. Premadasa entered into the spirit of the discussions with gusto and made some useful contacts. But as usual his primary purpose was to win something for Sri Lanka. He set his sights on clinching the British ODA grant from Britain for the Victoria Project.

Premadasa had always had an unreserved admiration for Margaret Thatcher. He respected her directness and the strength of her leadership. She had fought a hard battle to come up to where she was from her often referred to ‘grocer’s daughter’ background. He empathized with people who had got to the top by means of hard work and merit, not birth. Their acquaintance had begun in October 1975 at Blackpool in England at the Annual Conservative Party Conference when Margaret Thatcher was leader of the opposition.

In 1978, soon after forming his government, President Jayewardene had approached the Labour Government in Britain for funding of the Victoria Dam, one of the five projects of the Mahaweli scheme. The preliminary approvals had been given, but soon thereafter Harold Wilson’s Labour Government fell. The Conservative Government of Mrs Thatcher, facing an economic crunch, were not looking at Overseas Development Aid that favourably.

It was then that Premadasa decided to put on the pressure. On the way to CHOGM, he first stopped in London, seeking the customary courtesy call on the prime minister (which was in his case invariably granted). He met Mrs Thatcher and Lord Carrington at her No 10 office and pleaded the case for Victoria. Thatcher was impressed with the way he put forward the case. But try as he might, he could not get a commitment from her in London.

Premadasa knew he was going to have a further chance of meeting Margaret Thatcher in Lusaka. Thatcher was under extreme pressure at CHOGM and the frontline states, Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya, in particular, were cornering her for quickening the pace of Zimbabwe’s independence. Premadasa worked behind the scenes and at the conference table to work for a compromise acceptable to Britain.

He moved closely with Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. The seating order around the table helped since the alphabetical order put Sri Lanka and Tanzania together. Mrs Thatcher was mindful of the support Sri Lanka gave during the meeting.

Each delegation had been provided with a comfortable villa in the Mulungushi enclave, specially prepared for the CHOGM delegates. There was a good deal of inter-villa entertainment and Premadasa invited Mrs Thatcher to have lunch with him, along with a few others on the third day of the conference. Although she was indisposed that day, Mrs Thatcher came for the lunch. On leaving, she handed Premadasa a little card – the size of a post card – on which were typed these words :

Sri Lanka I am glad to be able to tell you that we are now in a position to offer a UK contribution to the Victoria Dam Scheme. This would he in the form of a grant of up to 100 million over six years towards the costs of the design and construction of the dam and power station. It would, of course, be subject to normal UK grant conditions.

Margaret Thatcher

Lusaka 6th Aug 1979

Premadasa’s persistence had paid off. But he was not fully satisfied. There was one more nail to be struck to make the picture perfect. The card had not been signed. Anyone else would have been happy to go home with 100 million pounds. But as usual Premadasa wanted it not only in writing but signed, sealed and delivered as well.

Before the afternoon sessions commenced, he directed me to go around to the UK delegation side of the table and get Mrs Thatcher’s signature on the note. It was with some embarrassment that I pushed through the officials to Mrs Thatcher’s side. But she was all typically British courtesy. “Of course,” she said, pulling out her pen from her handbag, “how forgetful of me!”

(Excerpted from Rendering unto Caesar, Autobiography of Bradman Weerakoon)