Features

Origins and growth of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna

Published

6 years ago

2021/04/5

Sahan Weerasooriya

THE APRIL 1971 REVOLT – I

By Jayantha Somasundaram

The 50th anniversary of the first JVP insurrection falls today. The 1971 rebellion was the first armed uprising against the state in modern times.

The JVP was the brainchild of Rohana Wijeweera. Born in 1943, at Hunandeniya, in the Matara District, his father was a supporter of the Communist Party of Ceylon (CPC). However, while studying medicine in Moscow, Wijeweera became critical of the Soviet Union, and, on his return, he joined the Communist Party (CP), which was Maoist. Not long after, in 1966, Wijeweera, along with his supporters, broke ranks with the CP to form their own movement, which would later become the JVP. Wijeweera had concluded that the agricultural labourer -̶ the rural proletariat -̶ was the largest and most important component of Sri Lanka’s working class, not the urban or plantation worker.

The JVP was able to attract university students to its cause. It gained recruits at Vidyalankara (Kelaniya) University by winning over students who were members of the PC-supporting Lanka Jatika Sishya Sangamaya (Lanka National Students Society) led by G. I. D. ‘Castro’ Dharmasekera. In 1970, the JVP wrested control of the Samajawadi Sishiya Sangamaya (the Socialist Students Society) at the Peradeniya University; while on behalf of the JVP, Mahinda Wijesekera led the Sangamaya at Vidyodaya (Sri Jayewardenepura) University.

In 1969, Wijeweera organised two Congresses, bringing together all his supporters. At the two-day conference in Madampella, Negombo, the leadership, which consisted of Wijeweera, Sanath, Karunaratne and Loku Athula, along with the District Secretaries, constituted the JVP Central Committee. Later that year, at Urubokka, in the Matara District, the movement took on its final configuration. Five-member cells formed the core structure, overseeing them would be area leaders who were in turn responsible to District Secretaries.

At the Urubokka Conference, the prospect of manufacturing weapons was taken up and the suggestion made that projectiles such as rockets would be effective against the Army’s Panagoda Cantonment, at Homagama. In early 1970, at the Dondra Conference, in addition to collecting and manufacturing weapons, the details of recruitment, training, uniforms, and collecting information on the Armed Forces, were discussed.

The JVP’s Ideology

The JVP was critical of the mainstream left parties, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party as they had entered into an alliance with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and would be constituents of the United Front (UF) government, which came to power in May 1970. However, it was in those very areas, that had been worked on by the older left parties for three decades, that the JVP took root.

The JVP leaders, however, were from backgrounds and experiences quite different from that of the old left parties. They did not come from Colombo’s public schools, few of them had been to the British-styled residential university at Peradeniya, and none to Western universities. Many were teachers and students of small-town Central Schools and the Pirivena (Buddhist monastic) Universities. “Unlike the traditional left, the activists of the JVP were the children of the 1956 Sinhala-only struggle, with its attendant limitations and advantages,” writes Michael Cooke in Rebellion, Repression and the Struggle for Justice in Sri Lanka: The Lionel Bopage Story.

The rank and file of the JVP consisted of militant Sinhala-educated young men and women. They were underprivileged rural youth, with meagre job opportunities, constituting a potential army of frustrated school and university leavers. Overwhelmingly Buddhist Sinhalese, they were drawn from marginalised castes. Wahumpura villages in Elpitiya gave the JVP strong support, while, in Kegalle, the Batgam were won over by the JVP. In Sri Lanka: Third World Democracy, James Jupp explains: “The JVP appealed to the Buddhist Karawe, Durawe, Batgam, Wahumpura … both from the Southern Province and the Kegalle District, anti-Govigama feeling was a motive behind the mass recruitment to the JVP in certain villages.”

The JVP endeavoured to recruit sympathisers in the armed forces, with Wijeweera establishing contact, as early as 1965, with Tilekaratne, a rating in the Royal Ceylon Navy. Later Uyangoda held classes for Naval personnel, made contact with Air Force personnel in Wanathamulla and Katunayake, and delivered lectures to them. They also provided classes for soldiers stationed at Diyatalawa.

The Party evolved its own Marxist ideology which was a hybrid. It drew on Trotsky’s criticism of Stalinism and the ‘popular front.’ From Mao it asserted the primacy of the peasantry as the backbone of the revolution. And from Castro it learnt armed insurrection. The JVP training for its cadres emphasised neo-colonialism, attacked parliamentarianism and rejected the mainstream left parties.

In its economic teaching, the JVP differed little from the LSSP or CP. However, they did not only point out the neo-colonial dependence of Sri Lanka’s economy, but identified the UF as part of this neo-colonial system. They called for a halt to the expansion of the tea plantations while advocating the intense cultivation of food crops and the collectivisation of land to overcome landlessness. The JVP in its propaganda organ Vimukthi claimed that “the socialist revolution would succeed in Ceylon only when the oppressed peasantry became politicised … hey are the moving force of the Ceylonese revolution.”

Political Growth

The JVP recruited cadres who would attend political training, delivered through five lectures. These covered the economic crisis, neo-colonialism, Indian expansionism, the left movement and the Sri Lanka revolution. Those who completed all five lectures and volunteered for combat, around 9,000, had military training.

It was in tactics, however, that the JVP differed radically from the rest of the left, which had been concerned with trade unions, strikes, rallies and elections. With the passage of time, the JVP evolved a tactic, where they functioned openly as an agitational group, whilst, at the same time recruiting combatants into a clandestine military organisation. They held that the socialist revolution in Sri Lanka would have to be a sudden armed insurrection, launched simultaneously across the country. This is the most advanced and complex form of revolutionary combat.

Their ‘24-Hour Revolution’ was premised on the assumption that the police and the armed forces had insufficient ammunition to survive a simultaneous uprising throughout the country. However they also wrestled with a critical tactical dilemma: “How to attack the government, moving carefully enough not to outpace the disillusion of the masses, yet fast enough to hit before the government struck at it.” (Fred Halliday The Ceylonese Insurrection in Explosion in a Sub Continent edited by Robin Blackburn)

The JVP came into the open, in 1969, through public meetings, the first of which was held at Vidyodaya University. This public profile brought a large number of new recruits whom the leadership claim reached about 23,000 committed members. But it also resulted in the police responding with widespread arrests amounting to about a thousand JVP activists. Fearing all out repression, they established protected villages in remote rural areas, as logistical bases. “The movement took no root in the towns, nor in the industrial coastal areas around Colombo, nor in the Tamil areas,” wrote the Belgian Catholic priest and sociologist Francois Houtart in Religion and Ideology in Sri Lanka.

Shortly before the May 1970 general election, Dharmasekera allegedly informed the Minister of State J. R. Jayewardene, through an intermediaries, of the JVP threat. This triggered heightened interest in the media which gave them the appellation ‘Che Guevarists,’ and the establishment of a special CID Unit, which began arresting JVP members. Wijeweera himself was arrested at Hambantota on 12th May. When he was released in July, Wijeweera launched a series of public meetings across the country, going as far north as Anuradhapura. There was a pause after October and then came a massive meeting in Colombo at Hyde Park on 27 February 1971.

The Prelude to the Uprising

The JVP’s highest decision-making body was its 12-person Political Bureau (PB) which, at its Ambalangoda meeting, in September 1970 decided to begin collecting arms, with Loku Athula placed in charge of the armed section and directed to collect 100,000 bombs. At the next PB meeting, held at year-end, Loku Athula reported that 3,000 bombs were ready.

The hand bomb was the JVPs main weapon. But guns and ammunition were also being purchased and stolen and stored by the JVP, in one instance at the Talagalle Temple at Homagama, which was raided by the Police. Uniforms for JVP combatants were being produced secretly, mainly at Vidyodaya Campus; a blue shirt and trouser with pockets, a cartridge belt, boots and helmet. In addition, Viraj Fernando, an engineer who was sympathetic to the JVP, had at Wijeweera’s request went overseas in November 1970 to make contact with foreign rebel groups to procure weapons.

Wijeweera also gave instructions to Piyasiri to build under-ground storage facilities to hide their stock of weapons and explosives, but on 9 March an explosion at one of these hideouts, in Nelundeniya, killed five. This drew attention, nationally to the fact that the JVP was arming itself.

Then on the 16 came an explosion at Marrs Hall at the Peradeniya Campus, in a room occupied by Hewavitharne. When the Police arrived and searched the halls of residence, they also found a stock of detonators at Hilda Obeysekera Hall.

A faction, within the JVP, led by Castro Dharmasekera, wanted the movement to remain secret and prepare for guerrilla warfare. But the majority disagreed and Dharmasekera and his supporters were expelled. In response, on 6th March, calling themselves the Maoist Youth Front, they held a demonstration outside the US Embassy in Colombo during which a police officer was killed. Although the JVP denounced Dharmasekera, Wijeweera and hundreds of his supporters were arrested during March, the JVP claimed that 4,000 cadre were now behind bars.

Dharmasekera’s provocation and the bomb explosions led on March 16th to the government declaring a State of Emergency, dusk to dawn curfew and their warning of a JVP plot to take state power. In response, the Army deployed two platoons of the 1st Battalion, Ceylon Light Infantry (1CLI) to the Kegalle District, which would soon become the centre of fierce fighting. This was followed by a further two platoons being sent to Kandy.

(To be continued tomorrow)

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Features

Coercive laws recipe for future misrule

Published

8 hours ago

2026/10/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

The NPP government is going after powerful figures from the past and present who have engaged in corruption, fraud and criminal activity in a way that no previous government in Sri Lanka has done. Former ministers, politicians and senior state officials are among those facing investigations and legal proceedings. The government has placed before Parliament a document listing 50 cases involving corruption, fraud and other crimes. These include not only financial offences but also cases relating to the Easter Sunday attacks, the killings of Lasantha Wickrematunge and Wasim Thajudeen, the disappearance of Prageeth Ekneligoda and attacks on journalists Keith Noyahr and Upali Tennakoon.

The significance of this effort is that it can demonstrate that nobody is above the law, regardless of political connections or social standing, which will help restore public confidence in institutions that have long been distrusted. It could also recover public resources, improve the investment climate and strengthen the foundations for a more prosperous and just Sri Lanka. When criticised for focusing on the past and not the present, the government position is that these investigations were initiated under earlier governments, particularly between 2015 and 2019, and that it is now allowing investigators to proceed to deal with the backlog without political interference.

But there is an aspect of the government’s approach that is less justifiable. While pursuing past wrongdoing by powerful individuals, it is also advancing a triumvirate of draft laws that could give the state sweeping powers over citizens, organisations and dissent in the present and future. The draft Prevention of Terrorism legislation, the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill and the NGO Registration and Supervision Bill raise serious questions about the over-centralisation of power. Each of these laws strengthens the powers of the state while weakening the rights and safeguards that protect people from their misuse and thus questions the basic rights of people in democracy where ‘the power of the people is vested in the government’. This is a recipe for future misrule rather than the rule of law. As the well-known saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Proposed Laws

The real test of system change, for which the government obtained an overwhelming mandate, requires not only a government willing to hold others accountable, but one prepared to subject itself to the same principles of legality, transparency and restraint. The three proposed laws that are particularly important in this regard are the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill, the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill and the NGO Registration and Supervision Bill. Each of these draft laws has been presented as serving a legitimate purpose. Preventing terrorism, combating organised crime and ensuring that NGOs do not facilitate money laundering or terrorist financing are proper responsibilities of the state. Sri Lanka has international obligations in these areas, and no responsible government can disregard them. However, the existence of a legitimate objective does not justify every means adopted to achieve it.

The proposed Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill illustrates the problem. Although its definition of terrorism draws on a model developed by a former United Nations Special Rapporteur, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has warned that the definition of terrorism extends beyond the model and could bring legitimate political protest, trade union action and civil disobedience within the scope of counter-terrorism legislation. Its concerns also include prolonged detention, inadequate judicial oversight and restrictions on access to legal counsel. These are objections that go to the heart of the relationship between the citizen and the state. The government cannot credibly promise to protect democratic freedoms while creating powers that could be used to restrict them. It is necessary for the government to reassess the draft through transparent consultation and revise provisions that could criminalise legitimate dissent.

The Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill raises similar concerns. It is presented as giving effect to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, which Sri Lanka ratified in 2006. The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) has argued that the convention does not require many of the bill’s provisions. The proposed law extends to a broad range of offences, permits detention orders lasting up to a year, makes confessions to police admissible for purposes of legal evidence, and introduces extensive surveillance powers. A law intended to dismantle criminal networks should not create a parallel system of exceptional powers that could be applied far beyond organised crime. Nor should safeguards developed through years of experience with abuses under the Prevention of Terrorism Act be weakened through legislation bearing a different name. The government should review whether or not existing laws could be used effectively to control these crimes or whether each exceptional power is necessary.

Civil Society

The proposed NGO Registration and Supervision Bill presents another test of the government’s intentions. The government may reasonably seek transparency in the finances of organisations receiving public or foreign funds, including measures to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. It seeks to justify its overreach on the grounds of meeting the internationally mandated requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for the Asia-Pacific region. But these objectives do not justify placing civil society and NGOs under excessive administrative control when even the FATF ranks them as low to medium risks. The draft bill would require registration and renewal, impose extensive obligations on organisations and empower authorities to suspend or deregister them on broadly framed grounds. It is important to redraft provisions that confer excessive discretion over registration, renewal, suspension and deregistration of NGOs.

Among the concerns raised by United Nations human rights special rapporteurs with regard to the draft NGO law are provisions requiring organisations to align with government policies and restrictions that could affect advocacy, dissent and freedom of association. The implications extend well beyond organisations that engage directly with the government. Community groups, human rights organisations, independent researchers and organisations working on reconciliation or accountability could find their activities constrained by uncertainty over how these provisions might be interpreted. Organisations that criticise government policies are not thereby working against the country. Their freedom to do so is part of what distinguishes a democracy from a system in which the government determines which opinions and activities are acceptable.

The government has generated considerable public goodwill through its pursuit of corruption and criminality. It should not assume that this goodwill gives it an unlimited mandate to strengthen the coercive powers of the state. The NPP knows from its own history that governments can treat dissent as a threat and use the machinery of the state against their opponents. There is still time to correct the drafts through transparent public consultation, narrow definitions of offences, meaningful judicial control over detention and surveillance, and effective remedies against arbitrary decisions. A government that pursues corruption while weakening safeguards against state abuse risks undermining its own achievements. Besides bringing to light the abuse of power by previous governments, the NPP government needs to build a system in which no future government can abuse power in the belief they can get away with it.

Features

Quality assurance without quality enhancement: The irony of university QA

Published

8 hours ago

2026/10/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Ramya Kumar

According to the Quality Assurance Council (QAC) of the University Grants Commission (UGC), quality assurance (QA) refers to “the means (i.e. the policies, attitudes, actions, procedures, etc.), by which an institution can guarantee with confidence and certainty, that the standards and quality of its educational provision are being maintained and enhanced”.

An expansive structure has been in place since 2005 to govern and implement QA processes within the state university system. The QAC is the focal point at the UGC that implements external reviews of state universities and institutes. Each university has its own Centre for Quality Assurance (CQA) tasked with performing QA in line with QAC directives. Faculties, in turn, have Internal Quality Assurance Cells (IQAC) performing their own QA; they are answerable to the CQA.

The big question is whether this all-encompassing top-down QA system, that in many ways undermines the internal dynamics of university governance, actually supports universities to enhance the quality of education. This article highlights some concerns.

Top-down check-box activities

The QAC conducts external reviews of universities and degree programmes. A review team appointed by the UGC (who may or may not have experience in the institution/programme in question) examines the self-evaluation report submitted by the said institution/programme. The team then conducts a site visit to verify the claims made in the university’s self-evaluation report, clarify issues identified during the desk review, and examine how QA procedures operate in practice. The team holds meetings with the university administration, members of the Council and Senate, Deans, Heads of Departments, academic and non-academic staff, students, and others. Following the visit, a draft report is submitted to the relevant institution/programme for comment before final publication. The reviewed institution/programme then prepares and publishes an action plan addressing the recommendations, with subsequent monitoring of progress.

There are some worthy QA initiatives under implementation, such as improving facilities for students with disabilities and strengthening mechanisms to address sexual- and gender-based violence. However, for the most part, QA activities have little to do with improving the quality of education. They are mostly preoccupied with monitoring faculty and department websites, digital transformation, student feedback, subject evaluation, course evaluation, peer evaluation, and, more recently, staff appraisal. These activities, which consume an inordinate amount of time—so precious at understaffed universities—have become check-box activities completed to generate evidence for the next review. Below is an excerpt of a conversation between two academics (1 and 2) that conveys how QA plays out at universities (reproduced with permission).

1: … .it’s like social media you know, like posting things on Facebook or twitter or Instagram. When people do a lot of social media, everything they do, they do thinking, “okay I’m going to post it in this way… this I have to put on my Instagram.” QA is a little like that… everything is considered in light of, “ah we can use this for the review, as evidence… for example very recently we were encouraged to have all the things that we do in our department in the faculty newsletter so then they can put in the review. Every little thing has to be noted down….

2: And with pictures and all…

1: At the very least it has to be written so that you have written evidence .. you can’t be doing something for the sake of doing something or because it is good for the department … and sometimes people tell me “oh yea that’s a good idea we can fit that under this x, y section of the review..”

2: Yea, and nobody really thinks about the actual outcome… whether it’s actually helping anyone..

1: I also find that a lot of the words that we used in different ways have now been co-opted to the QA discourse ..including quality.. I can’t actually say what I want as an “outcome”, for example, that the outcome of this workshop is that my students “think about” … then I am told “ah but no that’s not one of the Bloom’s taxonomy words, “think about”.…

2: And the worst part is these medical and agriculture people, these types of people go around spreading it like some kind of gospel!

1: Yea, this cookie cutter way of doing things, they think is the height of innovativeness or creativity, when actually it is so mundane … for me the most awful thing about it is like some fungus of mundanity has taken over through QA reviews.

2: yea, when you say QA, my mind closes off immediately and I stop listening…

Auditing everything but power

QA leaves out crucial aspects of university governance. For instance, there is no review or assessment of the “quality” of university administrations under Criterion 1 or the integrity of procedures governing the promotion of academic staff under Criterion 6 of the institutional reviews.

The majority in the Council—the university’s executive and governing body, which is responsible for selecting the Vice-Chancellor (VC)—are appointed in ad hoc fashion. Apart from the Ex-Officio members in the Council (VC, Deans, etc.), and the two members elected by the Senate, the remainder are appointed by the UGC with no formal consultation or vetting procedure. The VC appointment process described in UGC Circular No. 03/2023 exemplifies how an ostensibly technical process can become entangled in political sycophancy. The Registrar invites applications for the position of VC through advertisement. Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae, a statement of vision for the university and supporting documents. The University Council appoints a three-member Search Committee of senior academics to encourage “eminent persons” to apply, while the UGC appoints a former VC from another university to “observe” the selection process.

A Special Meeting of the University Council is convened. Candidates are interviewed and must make a presentation to the Council Members, followed by questions. Each Council member “gives marks” for seven prescribed criteria: strategic focus (20%), effective leadership (20%), holistic thinking/conceptual skills (10%), academic and research excellence (15%), personal integrity (10%), professional communication (10%) and managerial competence (15%). Marks are averaged, and the Council recommends three candidates to the UGC in rank order. The UGC-appointed observer separately submits a confidential report on the selection process.

This procedure is expected to guarantee quality, but does it? Applications are submitted to the Council Members, who have been appointed on questionable bases, and who are expected to review the applications and give scores, based on objective assessments. But, in reality, most Council Members are manipulated by VC candidates, who often have personal ties with them. The UGC-appointed observer usually has no genuine interest in the outcome. And there is no way for anyone to actually question the Council’s decision once it is made. Although the highest-ranked candidate may ultimately be appointed, the selection remains a political decision made by the President, who retains the discretion to appoint any one of the three.

External reviews also do not look into the promotions of academic staff, except to scrutinise whether there are policies and procedures in place to govern promotion. Academic staff may apply for promotion to Professor once they satisfy the prescribed eligibility requirements, which typically include the period of service, academic qualifications, research and publication achievements, teaching experience, and contributions to the university and wider community. Applications are evaluated against specified criteria, with research output and academic contributions assessed through documentary evidence and expert evaluation. Under the UGC’s scheme for Professors, two experts from outside the applicant’s institution assess specified aspects of research and knowledge dissemination. Again, beneath this technical process, which is externally evaluated, lies a problematic points-based scheme that can be manipulated and abused with impunity.

Rethinking university QA

Like the VC election process and the schemes of promotion for academic staff, QA reviews are open to manipulation. Before a review, there is a chaotic rush to complete evidence gathering and reporting. Academics leave all other work aside, including at times their teaching, to focus on completing documentation and preparing reports. The standardised criteria in the review manuals and scoring sheets often do not reflect differences in disciplines and institutional contexts. But this does not really matter because any serious problems experienced by institutions or programmes are hastily brushed under the carpet to conceal any evidence that could taint the review. The goal is to obtain an A or at least a B grade at whatever cost.

QA may result in positive change if it moves beyond top-down check-box activities towards internally designed and owned processes encompassing all aspects of university governance, led by departments and faculties, and supported by adequate resources. The current QA system needs to be dismantled and replaced by procedures that are accountable, not to the UGC, but to our students and the communities we serve.

(Ramya Kumar is attached to the Department of Community and Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Jaffna)

. Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.

Features

Down Memory Lane — the Grand 20th Edition!

Published

8 hours ago

2026/10/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

Down Memory Lane: Ready to sing again

Yes, Down Memory Lane, the beloved Sing-Along concert series that first struck a chord, way back in 1997, returns for its landmark 20th edition this Saturday, 17th October, at the beautiful Bolgoda Grand Resort, Moratuwa town centre.

Having celebrated its glorious 25th anniversary with the show in 2023, this milestone 20th concert promises to be even more special.

The organisers, the ever-popular Moratuwa Arts Forum, are pulling out all the stops to present yet another unforgettable evening, brimming with camaraderie, fellowship, and pure nostalgia.

Get ready for two-and-a-half hours of non-stop singing as veteran vocalists, from the Moratuwa Arts Forum, will take the stage to lead and inspire the happy audience to sing, sing and sing to their hearts’ content.

The repertoire? Absolutely magical, according to the organisers.

Veteran Arun Dias Bandaranaike: Will handle the evening’s proceedings / Priya Peiris: Event Conceptor

Around 40 golden oldies — from timeless English vintage evergreens and hits from the 50s to the 90s, to toe-tapping calypsos, soulful American plantation melodies, rousing cowboy and Dixieland favourites, aa well as cherished Sinhala standards. All to be sung with much gusto!

This year’s dedicated organising committee comprises Brian Coorey (Chairman), Priya Peiris (Event Conceptor), Hiran Fernando, Suranga Fernando, Viranjan Perera, Hemka Fernando and Neelesh Silva. Guidance and support comes from Moratuwa Arts Forum President Sarana Guneratne and Secretary Chandani Silva.

Adding his signature charm to the evening, as Master of Ceremonies, will be the veteran Arun Dias Bandaranaike.

Don’t miss this landmark celebration of music and memories!

For further details, contact Hiran Fernando on 0772636446 or WhatsApp 0783636446.